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After 2.5 years of not getting covid, I'd finally got it. Fortunately wasn't hit badly and this was my first walk once feeling better enough to do some hills. Thought the full route of 4 munros would be a big ask if I still had any breathlessness though, so set off early enough to get 2 done, but not so early that I'd be tempted to continue on and try and do the 4! An enjoyable walk as it turned out, the only downside being the deer keds - must have been a bad combination of the time of year and the vegetation I walked through on the way up the first hill, as I ended up with more keds on me/in my hair than I've ever had on a walk before - but Aug/Sep this year does seem to have been particularly bad for them by most accounts.
Anyway, for anyone who doesn't have the time or the desire to do the 4 Mullardoch munros in one go, these 2 from the Mullardoch Dam parking area make for a good day out on their own. Variations on the way up and down would be possible, but what I ended up doing was roughly this:
It follows the WalkHighlands route description for the Mullardoch 4 for the ascent up Carn nan Gobhar and then on to Sgurr na Lapaich, but from there I descended down via Sgurr nan Clach Geala and Leacan Rhiabhach, then crossed the Allt Taige to pick up the path back to the Mullardoch dam.
- View along Loch Mullardoch at the start of the walk
- Mullardoch dam from the steep ascent route up Mullach na Maoile. Not much in the way of a path up it meant I'd walked through bracken for some of it, suspect that's where the keds had been lurking.
- Gradient eased over Mullach na Maoile before the final stretch to the first munro summit, Carn nan Gobhar
- Carn nan Gobhar summit looking to Sgùrr na Lapaich, today's second munro
- Loch Tuill Bhearnach, passed on the way between the 2 munros
- Sgùrr na Lapaich towards An Riabhachan, though however tempting in this weather, I wasn't going to be heading to that 3rd munro today.
- The descent route I was soon to be taking along this ridge, over Sgurr nan Clachan Geala
- Zoomed to Ben Nevis in the background
- Nice walk to Sgurr nan Clachan Geala and a look back to Sgurr na Lapaich
- Continued down, a slight detour to go and take a look at this random patch of bright white quartz rocks
- It's an enjoyable walk down the ridge and over its bumps. The view down to Loch Tuill Bhearnach and back over to Carn nan Gobhar here
- ...and back to Sgurr na Lapaich. I'm sure I took a couple more photos on the lower ground on the way back to the track, but they don't seem to be on my phone now so I don't know what happened to them.
The Allt Taige was no problem to cross in these conditions and I made my way down to join the infamous lochside path, though not really a problem at this end of it, it's not the eroded part. It became an ATV track and the knack was just to follow it, even on the couple of occasions it seemed to veer too far left (up the slope) - I didn't, and in heading straight on to take a more direct route found myself at small gullies or cliffs which were a bit too much of an obstacle to tackle and so realised why the track had avoided them by taking a route further up. After the enjoyable walk across the summits and high ground, this last bit was just something to get back to the car!
A month later I was back to do the 2 western Mullardoch munros, but from Glen Strathfarrar. Walk report for that to follow in case anyone else fancies trying them from that side too (it's another enjoyable walk!).
