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In May I got to combine Hillwalking with my work. At the School I work at, the pupils get to choose Activities put on by the the staff,during activities week. Myself and Brian, who works at the same school, agreed to offer " Bag a Munro", so we choose one that was not too far away and would not be too dangerous for the pupils to do. With Fionn Bheinn only being 1 hr away from Inverness and a straight forward walk, we opted for it. We discovered that if you take a group of pupils up a hill someone needs to have a Mountain leaders certificte, luckily our librarian Robin had one, so with 5 pupils opting in, we headed to Achnasheen. We parked at the railway station and headed back up the road onto the main road to a field at the start of Achnasheen on the Inverness side. The start gave us a gentle warm up without being too demanding.
- The field at the start.
At the end of the field we had to climb over the high deer gate, after this the ascent starts in earnest.
- The start of the hill.
- Looking East to Sgurr A Mhuilin
Soon a couple of objects stuck in the ground came into view so we headeded towards them.
- Objects on the hillside.
When we reached the objects, we discovered that they were two railway sleepers. We wondered why they were where they were and came to the conclusion that they must have been used years ago to attach a T.V. ariel to help boost the signal to the village.
- Railway Sleepers! Up a hill!
We marched on and headed up Creagan Nan Laogh
- Onwards and upwards
- Looking back towards Achnasheen
At the top of Creagan Nan Laogh, we stopped for lunch and added a few layers and hats and gloves as it started to feel more like winter than summer. From this point the route descended for a bit which was a welcome relief. Soon we were heading up again. From the West we could see the weather closing in so we upped the pace to push to the summit.
- Slioch in the background.
- Robin and Brian dressed for the elements.
- Heading to the ridge.
- Looking back towards Creagan Nan Laogh
Up on the ridge their was a path leading to the Summit,
- Path to Summit.
from here you had a graet view towards Loch Fannich.
- Loch Fannich
Three hours 20 mins we arrived at the summit. It must be the quickest stop off at a Summit. The weather was so bad there was time for a photo before a sharp exit.
- Munro No 9.
As we headed dow visibility was down to 50 ft. Thank goodness fo Viewranger, to keep us on track. (This time it did work)
- Misty
With the rain and wind coming from the west, we decided to go round Creagan Nan Laogh East side rather than over the way we came up, which did get us out of the wind and rain. This was a steeper descent but nothing too difficult.
- Stopping for a bleather.
This route was better for getting out of the weather but it was wetter underfoot with lots of peat bogs.
- Heading down, spread out.
- Lots of water.
- Brian and Robin planning the route down.
- Lots of Peat Bogs to negotiate before we found drier land.
Eventually we picked up our upward route and followed it back down. The route we descended round Creagan Nan Laogh would not be one I'd like to repeat(My waterproof boots were starting to take in water) but it did give us relief from the wind. 5 hrs 20 after we set off we completed the walk but it could have been done under an hour less, as we had to slow down for one or two of the pupils at various points. All in all it was a nice easy hill to do, especially for the pupils as it was their first Munro.