Ascents of the fannichs

[heatheronthehills]

Yesterday we climbed 4 of the fannichs - An Coileachan, Meall Gorm, Sgurr Mor and Beinn Liath Mhor Fannich. We met several people on our traverse, all going the opposite way, which lead us to wonder which is the most popular route of ascent for the Fannichs. We thought it might be a nice idea to do a poll of the starting point which most people take when climbing these hills. Where did you start from, which hills did you climb and in which order. Did you finish at the same point or were 2 cars involved? Just interested to see how these hills are done

[clivegrif]

Hi Heather

When I did these I approached from the south using a bike on the Hydro road and then dirt track to Fannich Lodge. From there I was able to do the main group in one go - 7 Munros.

Great day out, and because the hydro road is so little used and is all down hill, it was like riding a motorbike on the way back!

Not sure this is the most popular way though.

[jmarkb]

I suspect the most popular ways in are your route (possibly in reverse), and the middle 3 and the western 2 as separate days from Loch a' Bhraoin. I have also done Sgurr Mor and BLMF from Loch Droma, and An Coileachan and Meall Gorm on their own walking out via Loch Li (I don't recommend this: some of the roughest walking in Scotland!).

[Clach Liath]

Like clivegrif I recently approached this group from the south:

http://www.walkhighlands.co.uk/Forum/viewtopic.php?f=9&t=33141

This was the second time I had made this approach and the road is much improved from the first time I did this many moons back. It is a 6/7 mile approach though, so any combination of the hills is probably going to require a bike if you are looking to avoid an overnight camp.

I agree that the ride out is great.

[Mancunian]

Two years ago I did a multi-day hike along the Fannichs into the Fisherfields and ended up at Corrie Hallie. See here: http://www.walkhighlands.co.uk/Forum/viewtopic.php?f=9&t=12095
The start was at a layby near Loch Glascarnoch but it took around 6 hrs from there to get to base of An Coileachan. Two cars were involved. As jmarkb said, the walk in from Glascarnoch is really hard and the terrain boggy. I would only recommend that for multi-day hikes but not as an option for a single day trip.

[nil7]

I did a clockwise round of these 4 from Glascarnoch, adding on the Corbett Beinn liath Mhor a Ghiubhais Li, then did them the opposite way round the second time.
There is a good track through the forest on the east side of the Abhainn an Torrain Duibh to about NH265722, which eliminates most of the boggy stuff.

[rossy71]

Hi guys, very interested in the discussion here, as we're planning to hire bikes (Square wheels in Strathpeffer) and cycle in to Fannich Lodge, camp overnight, then do the munros the following day. Is it feasible to do all 7 in a day like this (assuming an 8am-5pm) time period?

Was planning to start with An Coilleachan, then head NW from there and see how many we could get, before circling back down to Fannich Lodge to pick up the bikes and cycle out. We were reckoning on doing 4-5 in the day, though haven't done this area before, so trying to gauge the difficulty/scale of the ridges and mountains is tricky.

Has anyone camped above Fannich Lodge before and if so, do you need to check in with the lodge beforehand?

[jmarkb]

Is it feasible to do all 7 in a day like this (assuming an 8am-5pm) time period?

Doing the 7 from Fannich Lodge is around 27km and 2100m of ascent = 9 hours by Naismith so you'd have to be going fairly well. The terrain on the ridges is generally good, however.

[spiderwebb]

I can vouch for the rough going from the car park by the met station at Torrandhu bridge end of Glascarnoch.

There is a path along the river which is fairly good, quite pleasant on a nice day, crosses a tributary and carries on up the same bank to a bridge. Another bridge further upstream is the aim and after this is it pretty rough going to the col.

As has been said you can avoid the river path and take a track (not shown on the WH GPS planner) which leads off from the other side of the bridge from the car park. This is a good track uphill slightly at first then levels out and eventually drops steeply to the aforementioned first bridge. Would be easily cycled on this track.