Over The Hill

As Bank Holidays go, this one was a bit of a wash-out, especially on Sunday, and so we quickly re-arranged our plans, and opted for the Monday, which promised to be slightly better, and in fact turned out to be a very nice, if somewhat cool, day on the hills. An additional bonus was that the traffic on the A82 was extremely light, and we were soon parking up at the forestry car park just outside Glencoe village and setting off on the track that leads to the direct route for the Pap of Glencoe.

Ahead of us was a steep climb up the very eroded, rocky, and at times almost scree-like path until we reached the 480m height on the western slopes of Cnap Glas, where we left the path, and a considerable number of other walkers destined for the Pap, and branched off on an east-south-east heading towards our objective, Sgorr nam Fiannaidh.

Shortly, the rough path changes as the heather underfoot is replaced by huge swathes of broken rocks and boulders, making for slow progress over the crest of Cnap Glas and onwards on the steep climb towards the prominent knolls at the head of Clachaig Gully. There is the makings of a path which we picked up at times, and then just as quickly lost in the rocks, or, snow, which lay on the higher levels. But, on a day like today, the effort was aptly rewarded as we gained the 900m ridge, when all around us were wonderful views of the mountains of Glen Coe, and, further afield, Ardgour and the Nevis Range - Breathtaking.

Once on the ridge, the hard work is over, as you descend slightly to across the narrowing, but very easy, ridge flanked on the north by the extremely steep crags of Coire an Lochain and to the south by the equally steep Coire an t-Sidhein before a gentle climb up broadening slopes takes you to the fairly substantial wind-break that marks the 967m summit of Sgorr nam Fiannaidh. From here, the views ahead over the Aonach Eagach were quite stunning, as the snow was still lining the northern face whilst the southern face was clear, an almost perfect divide running along the entire length of the knife sharp ridge of Aonach Eagach.

This was a summit with a view, and so lunch was taken with our backs to the wind-break and sitting looking out along the ridge, and sure enough it wasn't too long until we spotted 2 small figures just completing the ridge and appearing at the top of Stob Coire Leith. We watched their progress as they completed their traverse and came towards us, moving at quite a pace, so therefore were not surprised to find that they were 2 young men on a mission - they had completed the ridge, from car-park to Sgorr nam Fiannaidh in just over 2 hours - and this was just a training run for them, as they are aiming to do the entire Cuillin Ridge in Skye in a single go sometime later this year - We wished them all the best, and watched as they then jogged off down the route we had just come up, only they seemed to make it look so easy!

As for us, well we set off at a much more sedate pace and retraced our steps through the snow and back to the area above Clachaig Gully where we started our descent back down towards the shoulder of Cnap Glas, and, as is often the case on the descent, we were able to see the outlines of a rough path for most of the way, which made the descent slightly easier going, although still over very rocky ground until we re-joined the Pap of Glencoe track at the 480m height.

Another great day in the hills, and yet one more Munro, this one, a new one for each of us - Thanks Lindsay, Lawrie