Creag Meagaidh - up the Window, down Sron a' Choire

[go spazieren]

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The weather didn’t look so good for the Cairngorms area on Sunday so I decided to head a bit further west to revisit Creag Meagaidh and add the 4 subsidiary Munro tops to the walk. I considered using the Moy route, but from reports it didn’t seem too appealing, so I decided on going up via the Window then walking around the plateau to visit the Munro summit and each of the tops with a descent via Sròn a' Choire. This is the same route as used by Kenny_G in a recent report, but in reverse.
I left home early, about 5:30am, and made the drive over the Lecht and along the Spey valley and so on to the A86 to the Nature Reserve car park at Aberarder arriving at 8:15am. Not a very nice drive, with freezing fog here and there particularly east of the Cairngorms, but it improved as I neared my destination and the sun came up.
The car park was a hive of activity. Several groups were preparing to set off, mainly climbers heading for Coire Ardair. I slotted in between a couple of fast-moving groups and marched up to the lochan in pretty good time.

Sròn a' Choire from the Coire Ardair path

Coire Ardair

and again......

The path is excellent, and today it was frozen but dry with very little ice. Once past the loch I took a breather. Coire Ardair is always spectacular and in the winter conditions today it was particularly impressive. There were already some climbing groups making their way around to the base of Easy Gully.
I pressed on, climbing up the increasingly snow-covered slope towards the bottom of the boulder field on the east side of the Window.

Route up to the Window

No-one else was around at this point and it was silent apart from the occasional sound of ice falling from the cliffs of Stob Poite Coire Ardair on my right as they warmed up in the sun. I put on the crampons and plodded up the snow slope. This section is so much easier with a deep covering of snow. It was loose, bouldery and quite unpleasant when I last came down this way. The snow surface was soft and granular with a well broken trail to follow.
Once up in the Window bealach, a very cold breeze got up with some cloud briefly blowing in from the east. The view out west looked good though and the cloud didn’t last long.

Looking east from the Window - murky

Looking west from the window - not at all murky. Ben Tee (I think) is prominent right of centre, Arkaig and Quioch hills behind

I continued scratching my way up the partially snow-covered path onto the plateau where I finally got rid of the crampons and didn’t need them again. Although there was plenty of snow, it was very mixed, mostly soft with some breakable crust. I ploughed on, past Meg’s Cairn and up to the summit. There were signs of a tent having been pitched in the col just below the summit. Must have been a cold night.

Creag Meagaidh summit - cold. Aonach Mor behind cairn

Looking WNW from summit. I think Sgurr na Ciche just about visible in distance

Looking east over plateau - not much to see here

It was very cold on the summit, so I didn’t wait around. I retraced my steps down to the col, then turned right to head out towards An Cearcallach. Quite tough walking initially with 20 to 30 cms of snow with no firm surface and no footsteps to follow. It improved as I started to descend on the sunny side where the snow cover was mostly thinner with some deeper but well consolidated patches.

Looking southeasast to Meall Coire Choille-rais and An Cearcallach

There were several mossy springs breaking through the snow– this must be water seeping into the slightly higher plateau to the north then making its way to surface as a result of the underlying geology.

Spring on southern side of plateau

I dropped into the dip of the burn flowing down into the Moy Corrie, climbed out the other side and continued southwest along the ridge of An Cearcallach to my first sub-top summit of the day. It’s a fine ridge bounded by coires on either side with great views over the Laggan reservoir.

On the ridge leading up to An Cearcallach

The ridge from Moy to the summit with it’s long wall really stands out to the west, as does the east face of Beinn a’ Chaorainn.

Moy wall stands out on ridge between Creag na Cailliche and Creag Meagaidh summit. Beinn a’ Chaorainn.behind.

Nobody around this part of the hill, just a solitary set of footprints probably from the previous day.
I returned northeast along the ridge turning right and skirting the unnamed southern coire before climbing up onto Meall Coire Choille-rais, the southwestern ridge extension of the plateau. The standout feature of this peak is the sheer drop and view north into Coire Choille-rais.

On Meall Coire Choille-rais looking down into the coire.

I doubled back and soon turned right (north) to skirt around the western then northern lip of the coire to gain the ridge of Puist Coire Ardair. This is on the eastern extremity of the plateau and forms a narrowing ridge between Coire Ardair and Coire Choille-rais. The high point is marked by a small cairn, but a more spectacular vantage point was a little further east from an outcrop overlooking Coire Ardair.

Puist Coire Ardair summit

A little further east, looking back down into Coire Ardair

The ridge continues east, dropping 90m or so before climbing 20m to the final sub-top of Sròn a’ Choire.

On Sròn a’ Choire looking west

There were a few sets of footprints here, so I followed these, adjusting my descent route depending on the terrain, but generally heading east. Initially the slope was moderate with short heather and little snow underfoot. There was a steeper drop into the coire of the Allt Bealach a’Ghoire, and a lot more snow in there. The snow was quite soft but easy to descend through. It would have been hard work going up that way though. I picked up an ATV track at around 650m. This was quite boggy with icy patches, but still a great help on the descent especially lower down where the vegetation got thicker. Eventually the track crosses a bridge over the Allt Dubh and joins the nature trail leading back to the car park. I was back at the car at 2:30pm so drove home in daylight.

[Kenny_G]

Nice write-up and great pics, glad the route down worked! 👍🏻