Ring of Steall - Day 2 in Lochaber

[gld73]

So glad I'd chucked stuff in the car to camp over just in case the weather looked good after the 2 western Mamores yesterday. Beautiful day from the start, and the early start (by my standards) getting up not long after dawn meant plenty time to do the Ring of Steall without rushing. I followed the WH route description, though as it was a circular walk, I didn't bother driving to the Upper Falls car park at the end of the Glen Nevis road, just parked in the small Polldubh Falls car park (the nearby big Lower Falls car park currently closed off for upgrading work) and walked along the road to the Upper Falls car park at the start rather than the end of the walk.

Brilliant day; pre-midge season, never too hot, never too cold, mix of t-shirt and shorts weather, to coat, hat and trousers weather. Stayed dry, practically no wind (so ideal for scrambling on narrow ridges) and cloud always well above the summits. Only saw a handful of other people all day anywhere on the route, most at a distance when looking back, so no waiting at scrambling pinch points. In fact the scrambling in these conditions was all much easier than I'd expected. The most phaffing part of my progress was at the wire bridge, trying to decide whether to use that, or just paddle across. I ended up taking a detour to find stepping stones, couldn't find anywhere to keep dry feet, so took boots and socks off and paddled across 2 stretches .... with hindsight realising if I was going to take that option rather than the wire bridge, I could have just done a more direct route then to rejoin the path later on in the route. Still, didn't matter, got to cross the bottom of Steall Falls this way.

Steall Gorge

Steall Falls

Opted to paddle further up rather than use the wire bridge

View back down to the valley, Ben Nevis over the way

Heading up the first munro (An Gearanach) and getting the first view of the rest of the Ring of Steall

Ring of Steall pano from summit of An Gearanach

...and pano north to (L-R) Ben Nevis, Aonach Beag and the Grey Corries

Ben Nevis

An Gearanach summit cairn and the onward scarmbling route to the rocky top of An Garbhanach and the next munro, Stob Coire a'Chàirn

Nice rocks for scrambling in these perfect conditions

Summit of Stob Coire a'Chàirn, view back along the ridge to An Gearanach

Continuing along the ridge towards the 3rd munro of the day, Am Bodach

Am Bodach summit, looking back along the first half of the ridge route done so far

Continuing along the ridge towards Sgòr an Iubhair, with the final munro, Sgùrr a'Mhaim on the right. (Stob Ban, done the day before is on the left, behind Sgor an Iubhair)

Stob Ban and Mullach nan Coirean to the west

The Devil's Ridge

View back down having done The Devil's Ridge and now heading up Sgùrr a'Mhaim

Summit of Sgùrr a'Mhaim, Ben Nevis to the north

Starting the steep descent down Sgùrr a'Mhaim to Glen Nevis

Great views all day ... convinced me to stay for a 3rd day to do some more hills while I had midweek days off in good weather... so Aonach Mor and Aonach Beag the following day.