19th birthday hike up An Teallach

[caitlin2705]

After having several recommendations from work friends about this hike, I decided to make it my intention to climb on my 19th birthday - weather dependent of course because who wats to spend their birthday out in the true Scottish weather?

We set off pretty early that morning and throughout the whole drive up, the sky was claggy and thick with clouds, it didn't seem like it was going to clear at all despite what MWIS had excited me with that morning. As this was only to be our 4th and 5th munro, my navigation skills weren't the best yet so I did worry slightly about completing the transverse so before we began we decided just to attempt to smash out the two munros.

For only having done a couple of fairly straight forward munros prior, the decent was super tough and within the first couple hundred metres of decent, I doubted what I was about to get myself in for with the rest of the hike. Needless to say, I still continued on with burning calves, struggling lungs but a burning sense of ambition to spend my birthday afternoon at the summit of one of Scotland's finest peaks. The clouds began to lift slightly, however it wasn't looking too promising for witnessing the classic view of the pinnacles from the first munro.

After spending too long messing around with OS maps on my phone trying to figure out where the path lead to, we ended up tagging alongside a solo hiker who was telling us all about the many hikes he had been on in Scotland, think these munros were to be his 220 something? We were just completely fascinated by all of his stories having only started our adventure journey a couple of months prior. I can never remember his actual name but we referred to him as "Dave", so "Dave" if you ever happen to read this report, give me a shout!

Anyway, after we finally caught up with the cloud that was lingering just slightly below our first munro of the day, I suddenly began to feel just a little disheartened as I truly believed that it was going to be the perfect day out with incredible views. I have since learned that it can still be an incredible day out, views or no views - it's all about the journey!

The summit of Bidean a' Ghlas Thuil ended up having some occasional breaks in the cloud but I still didn't get that glimpse of the pinnacles that I had seen pop up on my Instagram for the past couple of weeks. We sat up there for a good half hour, took some mandatory summit pictures with the birthday hat on and discussed our plan of action. We nearly never went across to conquer Sgurr Fiona as I didn't feel too confident with the conditions, however decided just to give it our best attempt.

Got the birthday hat on for the occasion

Birthday pose at on the Bidean a' Ghlas Thuil trig

Then...

All of a sudden the cloud slowly began to lift and then within minutes it was completely clear. I genuinely could not believe what I had just witnessed, it was truly magical. Nothing will ever describe that instant feeling of pure job and happiness when the cloud lifted to reveal the epic pinnacles. Pictures just never do it any justice at all.

After the clouds lifted after descending the summit of Bidean a' Ghlas Thuil

Panorama - absolutely out of this world

A classic shot

That was the moment I had been waiting for, the moment that was going to make my 19th birthday absolutely perfect. We then decided to head on up to Sgurr Fiona to conquer our first day completed 2 munros in 1. Again, it was brutal on my unfit legs but the views definitely kept us motivated to keep going.

Summit picture on Sgurr Fiona

View on the way up Sgurr Fiona

Lord Berkeley's seat from Sgurr Fiona

After spending far too long in total just taking in the views as well as the actual hiking, we definitely decided against doing the ridge as we already felt as though we had accomplished enough for one day and needed to get back on time. I will definitely be back very soon to complete the circuit now that I'm a lot more confident in my navigation ability.

Looking back towards Sgurr Fiona after descending

What a day!

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[gaffr]

A big difference with weather/snow conditions in the Cairngorms at the week-end compared to what you found in the west
My daughter skinned up to Cairngorm for a ski down on what she said was on reasonable snow.
Stay with working with Ordnance Survey maps on the phone? and with your map and compass work especially so now that winter winter can arrive almost overnight
Always a good thing when you feel that you have had a good day out and decide to leave the high ground earlier than perhaps you wanted to....very much part of your bag of good practice in the hills.

[prog99]

A big difference with weather/snow conditions in the Cairngorms at the week-end compared to what you found in the west

That doesn't look like December to me.

[Bonzo]

There's nothing better than the instant widescreen view you get when the clouds clear.

I'm assuming the route detail you've shown is incorrect as you missed Sgurr Fiona and walked onto an outlying summit.

[caitlin2705]

A big difference with weather/snow conditions in the Cairngorms at the week-end compared to what you found in the west
My daughter skinned up to Cairngorm for a ski down on what she said was on reasonable snow.
Stay with working with Ordnance Survey maps on the phone? and with your map and compass work especially so now that winter winter can arrive almost overnight
Always a good thing when you feel that you have had a good day out and decide to leave the high ground earlier than perhaps you wanted to....very much part of your bag of good practice in the hills.

Apologies for the confusion, this was in fact in May this year! I only recently started properly posting blogs on here and realised upon reading these comments that I had saved this as a draft initially for a reason!
I am aware however that the snow up North isn't actually too bad in comparison to the Cairngorms, but like you say, it can change overnight so it may be different now on the likes of Ben Wyvis which has little to no snow just a couple of days ago.
As this blog is actually from May, since then I have taken a navigation course and am a lot more confident when using an actual map and compass as opposed to my phone. Although having OS Maps on my phone is really convenient, I find now that it's always nice to become aware with your surroundings on an actual map as opposed to a small phone screen, it's really helped me to understand and identify features on a map. Obviously with winter too now, phones are reliable at all in the cold weather so it's super helpful just to have the map as a backup.
Again, apologies for the confusion with this report, I have since changed the date to the actual date!

[caitlin2705]

There's nothing better than the instant widescreen view you get when the clouds clear.

I'm assuming the route detail you've shown is incorrect as you missed Sgurr Fiona and walked onto an outlying summit.

Again some more confusion with this report which I do apologise about! It was written initially as a draft after a 12 hour shift and obviously it was saved as a reason...

[Sunset tripper]

Looks brilliant - love An Teallach!

All the best.

[gaffr]

When leafing through my hill notes ......in the 1960's with snow down to road level to we ended up at Dundonnell over the end of year holiday to get to An Teallach. In very soft new snow we got to Bidean a Glas Thuill that was just about enough for us on the day. At that time Bidean was judged to be the sole Munro. It was not until the following spring that we arrived for the traverse of An Teallach. Sgurr Fiona was not added to the 'LIst', until I think, during the 1990's. Over the years we have had four ways to get to the traverse apart from the access from both ends ....also by way of the ridge via Glas Mheall Mor and after leaving our kit in the bothy at Shenavall and by skirting around toToll an Lochain and onto the Glas Mheall Liath area.
I am probably not the only one around here that gets to the Torridons, the Cairngorms, BEM and Nevis by the Allt a Mhuilinn many times as the fancy takes us.