A windy one on Creag a' Chliabhain again

[gld73]

MWIS had predicted arduous conditions for hillwalking with high winds, but dry. By lunchtime there was still no sign of high winds in Inverness, so I decided to do a hill walk after all, and headed out to do Creag a' Chliabhain as it's a nice local one with a variety of ways up and down and no problem parking. Anyway, turned out MWIS predicted correctly! Dry, but very strong winds.

On this occasion I went up the north end; fortunately there's an ATV track avoiding the new forestry, though it's quite wet in places. I've only been down this end before, not gone up it. Eventually came to the deer fence across the 'plateau' and followed it a short distance right to get to the gate at the same time as a guy and his dog were coming down through the gate - first time I've ever met another person when doing walks on the Dunmaglass hills. Turned out he also lives in Inverness and thought it was so nice in town that a hill would be okay ... he told me I'd have trouble standing at the summit, and he was right.

Crossing the causeway at the north end of Loch Conagleann to ascend the hill from this end

Heading across wet flatter ground towards the summit (a higher bump hidden by the one ahead here)

Summit cairn looking east

Descent route going down this west side beside a stone wall

So a brief visit to the summit with a hastily snapped photo taken kneeling down for stability. I stood up, intending to do a full traverse of the hill by going down the south end (I've come up that way a couple of times), and quickly found myself being blown west. So that was my dictated descent this time; so windy, I didn't even bother trying to get over to the track which heads down the west side a bit further north, but just went a more direct route alongside a stone wall / fence. A combination of heather, gorse, tussocks and bog, but nothing too bad, and I came out on the track and followed it round again past the artist's studio etc and back along the wind-tunnel glen of Conagleann before rejoining the inward route and retracing my way back to the car.
Today's route:

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