TGO Challenge 2010 - Day 1: Inverie to Barrisdale

Starting from Inverie meant that I had a much more leisurely first morning than in previous years as the boat doesn't leave Mallaig until 10:15.  The boat was full of challengers and their backpacks, together with various assorted items for the villagers in Inverie because the boat is the mail boat. I popped into the Old Forge for a quick drink with the majority of the other challengers.

I left Inverie on my own at midday and headed north to Gleann na Guiserein. Everyone else was heading for Barrisdale or Sourlies.  The cloud started to lift above the summits as I started to climb Ladhar Bheinn. Unfortuantly by the time I got to the summit it was in the cloud again. Nevertheless, on the way up I got excellent views over the neighbouring hills and over to Skye & Eigg.

The SE ridge of Ladhar Bheinn turned out to be quite rocky, with several scrambly down-climbs, which therefore took a while to descend. After ascending over another peak, I dropped down to Mam Barrisdale where the plan was to camp for the night. However it was quite windy so I instead chose to descend to Barrisdale to camp.  I arrived at Barrisdale around 8 ish and found several other challengers also camped there, including Dennis, Lou & Phyllis and Jeff & Joke.

Position: llz=57.07934,-5.51320