33-34 Buchaille Etive Beag - Stob Coire Raineach (263), Stob Dubh (201) 27/05/2007

After exerting ourselves the previous day and realising that we had to be off the hill by about 3, we decided to find a fairly short yet spectacular hill to climb. Fortunately we had come to the right place, since Glen Coe has them in abundance. Weather-wise, the day was excellent - we had roiling clouds all around, but none ever got in our way or showed much signs of precipitation. Parking the car in a new purpose made car park at the foot of the hill, we made our way up the ever steepening slopes. As the slopes got steeper, however, the path became less boggy and after a while even had steps, so the climb was short and sharp. We reached the ridge in under an hour and headed for the southern top, from where we had clear views of our previous day and the dramatic side of Bidean nam Ban and perhaps almost a glimpse of that ever elusive 'Lost Valley'. With the hill descending very steeply on all sides, the views were dramatic and we vowed to climb the other impressive looking ridges in the area on later trips. We made our way to the northern top as well - less than a mile from the top of Buchaille Etive Mhor, but with the small matter of 800m of re-assent in between. We jogged back down to the car in about 20 mins and the whole walk took us less than 4 hours.

The view from the top of the southern top, with Ben Starav at my right shoulder along with the other hills from the previous day

Looking south along the ridge of Buchaille Etive Beag