With Graeme again for company, first time for a couple of years, we took the caravan and parked it in Glencoe, a nice site next to the Visitor Centre. Unlike previous, and younger trips, we did not climb on arrival but had a nice relaxing afternoon once berthed. Decided on this hill as being fairly close though it came as a surprise how far down Glen Etive we had to go - 10 miles exactly. The only car there and a threatening day with mist already on the hill. A map by the wayside advised walkers to keep to designated paths which we tried to respect. This meant not following the Munro Book but taking a line towards Ben Starav. Almost immediately we took the wrong path left, just before the bridge past Coileiter, getting ourselves into a very tangled, unused path. Eventually we forced our way across the burn to join the low level path that eventually leads into the corrie between Ben
Starav and Glas Bheinn Mhor. When the burn splits we veered off the Ben Starav path to follow a rough path along the right side of Allt Mheuran, which got more and more awkward. My map from the Munro Book indicated that the path should cross from the left bank to the right but we couldn't see this. Eventually Graeme crossed over and found a better path which led up to a col. [It was only on writing up my diary that I noticed that the second edition of the Munro Book shows a completely different map to that of the first edition that we used. It is much more accurate and would have helped us considerably]. Just before the col, at what looked also like a col we decided just to head off diagonally left up the hill [later on climbing Glas Bheinn Mhor we saw that the correct route was to go all the way to the col and then zigzag up a path]. Our way was not particularly difficult though I did have a little problem climbing up a scree gulley, which was steeper than it had looked from below. After the initial steep climb it was just a gentle, but boggy, climb roughly northeast. While misty there was the general feeling that all we needed to do was continue uphill and this led us eventually to a very sharp northern edge of the hill, leaving a short walk along this to the summit. No views in the mist, fully kitted because of patchy rain and very tired because of all the wrong paths, we thought "Sod Meall nan Eun, let's just go back down". Pointing the compass south west we were soon out of the mist and back down to the mini col. As we rejoined the path we met a man and woman going up. They too had had similar path problems but believed they had seen a good path further down. We told them of our way up but I think they went right on up to the col. Going down this path we now realised it was the one we should have been on at the beginning, not brilliant and sometimes boggy, it nonetheless was a massive improvement on the path up. At the end we expected to reach the path near Coileiter but ended up walking through a very boggy field reaching the main path a few hundred yards further back. From here it was a simple walk back to the car, and to the campsite for a simple meal and early night.
