Have you the one aboot the three Deargs ?

Post WHW race celebrations were enjoyed in MacDonalds where the three of us actually randomly managed to attempt to eat each others food for some reason. After a pile of food and a gallon of coffee Mark & Jason headed off to the prize giving and I headed off for the train to Roybridge …I had a bit of Corbetteering in mind.

Last time I was in Glen Roy the road was blocked by snow and I skied down a fair bit of the glen. This time, I used my wee folding bike to access the lower end. With the cycle section over, I stashed the bike and bothy gear and headed up the first of the Deargs.

It was alarming how dry the hill was and I felt a period of dehydration would be in order by the end of the day. It seemed to take forever bashing through the heather to get up onto the shoulder which led to the summit of Carn Dearg (number 1). Stopped to drink a third of the water bottle and started the descent to the north west. Sadly, the streams shown on the map were all bone dry …so much for a typical Scottish summer.

The remaining ascent onto the summit felt much easier than the earlier climb and I celebrated reaching the cairn on Carn Dearg (number 2) but downing another third of the water bottle. Picked a rather bad line down towards Gleann Eachach but recovered the situation by finding a sheep trod which traversed the steep slope.

Once down at the bridge I decided to risk drinking from the stream despite too many cattle than you would want near a water source. The water tasted lovely.

Once back at the bike, I reloaded my pack and headed back up Glen Roy and to Branachan Bothy. Was pleased to find the bothy in great condition possibly due to some maintenance work the weekend previous. Sat outside for most of the evening reading a book Jason had passed on – nearly pished myself with laughter on more than one occasion. The Hills are Stuffed with Swedish Girls comes highly recommended.

Next morning and there was one more hill to add. Stayed in my sleeping bag much longer than originally planned and had a very leisurely ramble up behind the bothy and onto the summit of Carn Dearg (number 3) – chuckled to myself at doing three hills all with the same name in succession.

Back at the bothy, I packed up and cycled back out to Roy Bridge before continuing back to Fort William and a beer to wait for my Dad who was driving from Glasgow to meet up for some Munro sport …