'On Beinn Damhain'
It’s been a busy week this week with paintings to paint, paintings to deliver and a couple of paintings to pack ready for shipping to the USA…..and this on the back of what turned out to be a very tiring walk on Saturday.
Firstly then, the walk. The plan was to walk the small and probably rather unfrequented hill, Beinn Damhain. This lies just to the NW of the northern end of Loch Lomond and is a hill I first visited with my friend Guy about eighteen months ago on a very wet and windy day. On that occasion we never got to the top, turning back not far below the summit in very unpleasant weather. It seemed just the place to return on Saturday as we were expecting there to be a lot of snow on the bigger hills and Beinn Damhain at just over 680m we thought would be clear of much of it. Wrong! As it turned out the snow was down to around 300m and the accumulations increased rapidly as you gained height. The weather was quite fine though with the heavy dark broken clouds well above our hill and indeed, well above the surrounding Munro’s too.
'On Beinn Damhain'
We had followed a broad track (built to service the hydro scheme) for several kilometres before heading up rough hillside heading for the lonely little Lochan Beinn Damhain. Even by the time we reached the loch the snow was deep and made for difficult walking. We carried on though around the loch and then very slowly up the gentle slopes beyond, avoiding all the steep ground. It was I have to say, very hard work and very time consuming, but the views as we gained height were fantastic. Every now and again the sun would break through the dark cloud and illuminate one of the hills just as if with a giant spot light. Suffice to say, there was much puffing and panting, swearing and cursing before we eventually stood at the top …and it took us five hours, but it did feel good finally standing there. The descent really wasn’t much easier and we were starting to get a little concerned about the time and daylight. We had head torches with us so as long as we could get back to the hydro track before dark all would be well. As it turned out, despite our seemingly very slow progress we were back down to the track by just before five o’ clock and an hour later we arrived at the car, tired and with very sore legs. To be honest I felt shattered after all that thick soft snow …it was a much harder day than many a Munro we’ve walked and it really was quite an experience.
The Summit of Beinn Damhain
The rest of the week has involved making, packing and delivering paintings. On Tuesday we had a very pleasant few hours taking three paintings up to Blairmore Gallery near Dunoon. It was great seeing Sylvia and Steve, the owners, and seeing how good the gallery was looking.
Wednesday saw us heading over to Edinburgh to deliver four paintings to The Gallery on the Corner. As we’d been doing a lot of driving in the past few weeks we decided to travel by train. This wasn’t as difficult as it might sound as the four paintings were all reasonably small and thankfully the trains not too busy.
It’s just a case of paint, paint, and paint for a few days now as I’m taking a couple of days off next week to join a couple of old college friends to do some walking and possibly even a spot of paddling. Seeing as the three of us have only met up together once before in the 28 years since all leaving Falmouth School of Art ….well there’s a bit of catching up to be done and no doubt a pint or two to be had.
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