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Falls from Glen Nevis.jpg[/attachment]After a pretty epic trip up Ben Nevis via the CMD in late June, my brother and I decided to get my other brother signed up for an equally epic (it was hoped!) day in the Mamores in late August. The weather was almost equally as cooperative - chances of that in Scotland must be almost as much as winning the lottery!
The Walk Highlands route description is absolutely spot on - and the path is well defined and very obvious along the whole route - so as long as you have good visibility like we had, no navigation problems at all.
Start of the walk is lovely with fantastic views up Glen Nevis to the falls of Steall.
![Falls from Glen Nevis.jpg]()
- Lovely view to start the day
The easy walk is interrupted with the tricky walk across the wire bridge. The midges took the opportunity to attack the defenceless on the crossing, but you are too worried about getting soaked to start a 10 hour walk....
Past the wire bridge, the next few obstacles were the river below the falls and the very boggy area beyond which snared one of our party. The river crossing was challenging to avoid getting wet. We had been going an hour and felt like we had gone nowhere.
The next section is the slog up to An Gearanach and it is a slog. Good path but steep and unrelenting, made bearable by the fantastic views back to Ben Nevis and across to Sgurr a Mhain.
Views from the top of An Gearanach were fantastic, but it was also obvious that we had a long way to go and it was going to be a long day! The ridge to Am Brodach was great fun, not too exposed great views with some good scrambling mixed it. The picture back to An Garbhanach gives a good idea of the terrain.
The climb up Am Brodach was probably the second hardest part of the day - very steep, lots of loose rock and unrelenting. To make matters worse - it still looked like a long way to Sgurr a Mhain...
Was a great relief to make it to the top of Am Bodach. The climb down and up to Sgurr an Iubhair was easier than what had come before. The Devils Ridge was very exposed - the step across the rocks was not attempted - one of our party bypassed to the north which seemed a little dodgy but we all made it past safely. The remaining walk up Sgurr a Mhain was ok, but with tired legs at this point the scree at the top was not welcome. Having run out of water on Am Bodach the thought of the can of Moretti to celebrate Munro #4 provided the necessary encouragement! Views from the top of Sgurr a Mhain were fabulous.
![Fantastic view of the Grey Corries from Sgurr a Mhain.jpg]()
We made it to the top of Sgurr a Mhain by 3.30pm after an 8.10am start - so made good time. Thought we might be down by 5pm - wrong! The path down is absolutely unrelenting - hard gravel and rock with lots of knee wrecking drops. It seemed to go on and on - the car park was visible about 1/4 of the way down and looked so far away for what seemed like hours! It was a full 2 hours of descent - never been so glad to take off the boots as at the end of this!
Overall this was a GREAT day. Its a hard walk - with the 9-12 hours - a really good indication of how long it is. Very satisfying though and with good weather - great views and easy navigation.
