Last time I set out to walk Ben Oss the weather was horrendous and I turned round after summiting Beinn Dubhchraig. Today was another belter of a day and I decided to try for Ben Oss again, this time rather than walking through the remnants of the Great Forest of Caledon, I walked through parts of the Ben Lui Nature Reserve up Glen Cononish. A beautiful walk in. I misread one of the sentences and thought I was to go up easy slopes to Creag Bhocan. Instead I had to ascend to the easy slopes above Creag Bhocan – and getting there certainly got the heart pumping and the legs feeling like jelly. Well on my way up here – miles from anything other than the farm at Cononish I thought I heard the toot toot toot of a car. And what was happening was the shepherd was out in the 4x4 and tooting the horn and all the sheep were running to meet the 4x4! Not as tuneful as the pied piper and not as much fun as having a sheep dog, but still effective!
Finding the lochans on the bealach between Beinn Dubhchraig and Ben Oss would have been more awkward today if I hadn’t been here before (or if I wasn’t able to read a map) as they were totally covered in snow and indistinguishable from the rocks! The last shoulder on to the summit of Ben Oss was awesome. The wind was incredibly strong and I had to use my crampons like anchors! And on the way back down I even sat and did a bum shuffle down the shoulder with my crampons holding on like talons until a particularly fierce bout of wind had subsided! Still the views were amazing
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