4E - GULVAIN
Looking from the south top to the main summit of Gulvain. Map https://big-gorse-bush.blogspot.com
10.2 miles 1040 metres
Start Monday 21.35
Gulvain 23.23
Finish Tuesday 01.22
Squares: yellow - changeover, red - finish. Circles summits: green - this leg, red - done. Map Colin Matheson
Time: Estimated 2.30 Actual 3.47
Like me, Ross got a repeat of the night before, setting off in the last of the light in deteriorating weather. However this leg with only one Munro and 2 Corbetts sitting in the way, was quite unlike his 7 Munros along a ridge of yesterday, and he also lacked the company he had had the previous night.
He set off on a diagonal climb past crags which I had spotted on my descent. The route is navigationally particularly interesting to try to get a good line round Streap and onto Braigh nan Uamhachan, but I have no idea what route Ross chose to take.
He had very unpleasant weather with very low visibility which caused him to have a very jaundiced view of the runnability of Gulvain which he described as being very rocky.
The photo shows the Gulvain ridge which poses the dilemma of whether to stick all the way along it with an extra 80m or so of climb or drop off the side earlier. The photo confirms my opinion that the ridge is beautifully runnable, but how it seemed in the fog and the dark I don't know.
Ross was running hard down the road when he arrived so he must have spent a long slow time in the dark and the worst of the weather. We were certainly getting fairly worried long before he arrived, and I found myself unable to sleep. Meanwhile poor Shiela was having her second miserable night sitting in the car waiting.
Peaks done 36 Hours elapsed 42 Peaks to do 241
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