Beinn Udlaidh & the River Orchy - Scotland day 5

We'd seen Beinn Udlaidh from it's neighbour Beinn Bhreac-Liath on our previous walk earlier in the week and it looked good. What encouraged us was the fact it had a track leading nearly all the way to the top. What it didn't have in it's favour was it was more northerly facing, therefore snow/ice would be more of an issue.

We parked in the pullover spot by Glen Orchy Farm and headed up over the style and through the pig field to reach another one at the top which took us into the woodland. The track was very icy so we donned our microspikes. I'd had a huge breakfast that morning and suffer from car sickness so was feeling really unwell after the drive. We'd also all developed sore throats after the cold dry air of the previous days (something I've never experienced before from being up in the hills).



We approached the steeper section and I made the call that I wanted to head down. It would have been too steep for Emma's microspikes to be effective in the level of ice and I didn't feel with it enough to rope her up the steep section.







Summit cairn - this is also a popular ice climbing spot & you can see some of the climbers footprints below



I was a little gutted to be heading down, but it was the right decision. I told Mike to carry on to the top as we thought we'd have a stroll along the river and have our picnic there. We arranged to meet back at the parking point in 2.5 hrs.

Emma and I headed back down briefly spotting Mike as he reached the flat top section.



We took a look at the frozen stream on our way back them then continued to the River Orchy.



As we crossed the pig field the pigs thought it was feeding time and chased us across the field - Emma failed to listen to my pleas to stay calm, but the pigs soon got fed up with pursuing us. The farmer was probably having a chuckle at us from his farm..

We strolled along the very low River Orchy and crossed into a stony island in the middle - I think this is probably completely covered during wet weather. It was like our own private stony beach and we had fun building a rock castle and generally lazing around.





Oyster catcher on a mini break from the seaside


We headed back to the car for our agreed time for find Mike there who'd been there for 45 minutes already  - he'd got down faster than he thought and had enjoyed sitting in the sun having his lunch. We then had a walk along the river to the first set of cascades.



Retracing our steps we went back to the car to drive to the waterfall further down stream. It was impressive but probably much more so in wet weather (people white water raft is during really wet conditions) - thanks Mike for these photos







We weren't sad about not getting to the top as we had a lovely afternoon of lazing by the lazy river!