Over The Hill

Having had beautiful weather for our drive up through Glen Coe, Glen Garry and finally Glen Shiel it was with some disappointment that we found ourselves pitching our tents at Morvich in the pouring rain - and it just got worse as it turned out that the Jac-O-Bite was closed for the evening - disaster as we had to raise our stakes and head for the Kintail Lodge Hotel, the only other option being cooking in the rain!

However, Saturday morning dawned bright and fair, if not a touch cool in the breeze, as we headed off to our start point at Lundie for today's round of three Munros at the eastern end of Loch Cluanie. Crossing the road from our parking point on the derelict site that once held a number of buildings during the construction of the Loch Cluanie dam, we took to the track of the Old Military road which runs along the hillside, parallel to, but higher up than the new modern A87.

A short distance along the track and just beyond the radio mast, we struck north on what is a clear, but rather eroded stalkers track which climbs up and around the minor top of An Cruachan before heading for the rocky western ridge of Coire nan Clach, a coire lined with large rocks and boulders looking just as if they had been deposited there by some giant hand, thankfully, the track skirts around these as it stays on the high levels of the ridge.

Suddenly, the ridge disappears, and ahead of you is a rather large open expanse of featureless hillside which certainly must pose a problem with navigation in poor visibility. Today, however, we had no such problems as we trudged over the stony ground making for the almost imperceptible hump that signified the highest point of the plateau, the summit cairn only appearing in the last few metres perched as it is, right at the northern edge of this plateau where the ground literally disappears from view and you are suddenly gazing down a sheer cliff face as it drops dramatically to the coire floor below. At 957m, Carn Ghluasaid was a fitting first Munro of the day, and the views were magnificent.

From the summit we could now clearly see the remainder of the days walking ahead of us; a broad, relatively easy ridge, dropping then rising over the 998m top of Creag a'Chaorainn, another of those Munro anomalies where from this top, you look down on the actual Munro, before descending and once again climbing to what was our second, and, at 1109m, our highest Munro of the day, Sgurr nan Conbhairean, with it's very impressive cairn, which incorporates a small, but very neat shelter, ideal on this windswept and open summit.

Leaving the broad ridge behind, a steep descent northwards from the summit of Sgurr nan Conbhairean takes in a fine grassy ridge with impressive coires to the east, and the steep upper slopes of Gleann na Ciche to the west as it descends to the narrow bealach at 914m before climbing to the unimpressive summit of Sail Chaorainn, at 1002m; unimpressive in that we actually doubled-checked with the GPS that this was in fact the summit, a slab of flat rock with a few stones masquerading as a cairn, while, ahead lay the much more impressive summit of Carn na Coire Mheadhoin, which at 1001m is, unfortunately out-ranked by Sail Chaorainn, just failing to make Munro status.

The unanimous decision was that we could not leave this outer un-climbed, and so we continued off along the ridge, to scale what was indeed the more impressive of the two summits, presenting as it does on the approach a couple of minor scrambles with great views to the glens below; and, the summit itself boasts a cairn fitting of a true summit; maybe it, and those who built this cairn are trying to tell us something!

Our route would now take us back along the ridge and over Sail Chaorainn before we reluctantly had to climb back up almost the entire north ridge of Sgurr nan Conbhairean before we could contour around it's western slopes in order to make our way across yet another impressive ridge, to the western outer of Drochaid an Tuill Easaich, and yet another 1001m top.

A very straightforward descent was made, south from Drochaid an Tuill Easaich along the long ridge towards Meal Breac, at which point, a steep and rough path descends through the heather towards the Allt Coire nan Clach, where we chose to stay on the west side and make the descent directly to the roadside and the A87, where a short, leisurely stroll back along the grass verge soon had us back at Lundie.

A great group of mountains, and great company - Thanks All