Allison having a social event on the Friday necessitated a journey up on the Saturday morning rather than the usual night before, and it was a bit of a shock to the system to be up at 4.30am - must be getting soft! Turned into Glen Nevis road, somewhere I've never been before, passing multitudes of tourists milling around despite the early hour. Drove along the glen to the Upper carpark and endured the usual midge infestation while getting ready - fortunately they seemed to be a bit put off by Smidge and didn't pose a problem later on.
Up til now, when I've been setting out on walks where there's a bit of a challenge I've felt apprehensive but today I was looking forward to the Devil's Ridge. Getting a bit more experience of being on the hills and having done the scrambling course recently has helped my confidence - I was hoping not to be in for a scare! There's a nice cheery sign on the way out of the carpark to put you at ease
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and then the excitement of the wire bridge over the Water of Nevis to look forward to. Allison - not a lover of any type of river crossing - was more worried about the wire bridge than the Devil's Ridge, but she coped fine.
Steall Falls was looking impressive cascading down the hillside as we passed.Steall Falls
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Facing her fear
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Crossing with the "proper" technique
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Grey Mare's Tail
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There was a squelchy boggy area to walk over as best you could before reaching the lower slopes of An Gearanach and thereafter a steady climb up the side of the mountain, affording good views along the valley.
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View back the way
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Unfortunately the higher reaches of the hills was obscured by low cloud, but we could see the convolutions of rock strata on the flanks of The Ben behind us.
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Summit was reached after a couple of hours. There was then a nice scrambly bit along the crest of the ridge to An Garbhanach which put me in the mood for the Devil to come. Unfortunately somewhere along here Allison lost one of her poles, which had been stowed - none too securely it seems - on her rucksack for the hands on bit. This gave me an opportunity to go back along the ridge to look for it, without success
Towards Glencoe hills
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To summit of An Gearanach
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Ridge towards An Garbhanach
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The weather was closing in by this stage as we wended our way over to Stob Coire a Chairn. A desolate baa-ing sound indicated the presence of 2 sheep at the top, who moved - sheepishly - away from us as we stood at the cairn.
Stob Coire A Chairn
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Towards Am Bodach & Iubhair
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Managed to take the wrong path, heading SE rather than SW
but fortunately spotted my error before we'd gone far - although not before I'd twisted my ankle on a loose rock. Having regained the proper path we walked over the 909 summit and on to Am Bodach, where we met a couple of guys heading in the opposite direction. Weather hadn't cleared unfortunately, so any views were brief glimpses through windows of clag.
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View thru clag window to Loch Leven
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Sgurr an Iubhair was next up with more sheep en route
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and i could see the profile of the Devil's Ridge up ahead, curving away to the N.
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The ridge narrows delightfully with steep grassy slopes plunging down on each side. We reached the "bad step" which is a cluster of boulders suspended over a gap. Allison watched me start to climb onto these then elected to go for the bypass route to the right (N), which turned out to be considerably more exposed and challenging than just keeping to the crest. I went over the boulders, following the many crampon scratches and found it a straightforward manoeuvre to get across, didn't feel much exposure either. Waited for Allison to eventually make her way back up to the crest.
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Boulders from the N side
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From there it's an easy wander up to the top of Sgurr a Mhaim, being rewarded with the occasional view across to Loch Linnhe. What a great walk!
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Allison on the final summit of the day - looking relieved
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Had taken around 6 hours to get to this point, and I fully expected to be back at the car in 90 minutes. Hmm. The descent was much more tedious and painful on the knees than I'd been expecting. It was one of those come-downs when you can see your end point (the car park) from a far, and you never seem to get much nearer to it, no matter how long you walk for. The path is rocky and rough underfoot and I needed to take care not to twist another ankle.
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Eventually got down to the start of the trees and I decided that rather than follow the path to the lower falls car park and have to walk up the road to the upper car park, we'd cut across the terrain and make for a footbridge marked on the map higher up. This required that we walk over grassy ground with numerous deep bog holes stealthily secreted - by some miracle we managed to avoid putting a foot in. When we got down to the river we could see a good track - on the other side of the 8 foot deer fence
We came to the bridge at last and had to clamber ver the fence as there were no stiles. Another bit of excitement for the day Onto the track and a pleasant, undulating walk along the Water of Nevis which brought us out at another footbridge across from Mam Beag, then a wander up the road to the car park. Dumped the rucksacks in the car, pulled on the big rucksack with the camping gear and off back to Steall Meadows to pitch.
I'd brought my new deluxe-size tent today which has a large vestibule area and this proved a godsend for preparing evening meal and keeping all the kit dry. And was that required! - overnight the rain pelted down on the tent for long periods. We woke to hear the rushing of water in the river nearby and from the Falls.
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Tent in the morning
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It was raining when we left the tent and looked like it was going to be a 'skins on all day kind of day
The walk back along to the car park was enlivened by the river roaring away beside us, and by some tourists out for a walk with umbrellas. imagine anyone going for a walk in this kind of weather - must be mental
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We drove down to the lower falls car park, paid the £3 and prepared to set off, amongst sizable numbers of mostly foreign tourists who were experiencing the delights of rain, clag and the scottish midge
Set off up the track towards Coire Mhusgain in full view of yesterday's grim descent trek. Neither of us had much energy and it must've looked like a couple of zombies out on a hike. Wearing full waterproofs didn't help as there was a degree of overheatin as we steadily gained altitude.
The path loosely follows the course of the Allt coire a Mhusgain, passing through some sparse old trees. All around was rushing water, the path turning into a wee river at many points.
View up the valley
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Coire Mhusgain
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As we neared the head of the coire the path led us to a tight crossing over a waterfall, where there had been a recent landslip. Allison didn't fancy the narrow wet ledge over the falls much and, on checking the map, we saw we were on the wrong path anyway
So we traipsed up the side od Stob Choire a Mhail to re-join the marked track and from there avoided further difficulties, arriving at the meeting of several tracks by Lochan Coire nam Miseach. We'd passed the impressive, imposing buttresses of Stob Ban on our right and looked back over to the Devil's ridge on the left.Buttress of Stob Ban
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Sgurr a Mhaim
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Stob Ban
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Devil's Ridge
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Ahead of us the track up to the summit of Stob Ban looked mighty steep. Elected to stop for something to eat before tackling this, and for a brief period the sun almost came out. To the south I could make out the Aonach Eagach ridge - still on the "to do" list, and also had good views of yesterday's route round the Ring of Steall. Not long after we set off, a solo walker caught up with us - he was planning on doing the north ridge of Stob Ban back down to Coire Mhusgain. We met him later on, near the summit, looking dejected as the clag had come down and the rain started up again.
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Aonach Eagach
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Ring of Steall
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The pull up to the top of Stob Ban is stony with the occasional scramble over boulders and then a narrow track skirts round the coire edge before finally arriving at the stony top. Descent over more boulders down to an easy to follow path which follows the coire edge as it heads over to Mullach nan Coirean. I'm sure the views are impressive, but all we managed to see was rocky shapes looming out of the clag, occasional steep drops down the coire edge and more sheep! The rocks change from white schist to red sandstone on the course of the journey. At one point we passed by what looked like another exciting bit of ridge crest to go along, but with very poor vis, rain and soaking wet rock i thought better of it
Summit Stob Ban
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Shapes in the clag
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Not much further now to the summit of Mullach nan Coirean, with an impressive cairn. Winds were stronger here, although had not been anything like the gusts of 50mph that had been predicted.
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Our route down followed the eastern shoulder of MnC back down towards the tree line. After a few stumbles on the wet boulders the path becomes sounder and so much better than the previous day's one. Eventually we reached the deer fence, kept to the left of it and were relieved to find a good strong stile to cross over into the mostly felled forest rather than having to carry out another commando manoeuvre
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Descent down shoulder of MnC
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There's a sweet little walk through the remaining trees before the area of desolation is reached - however through the tree stumps is a recently constructed path leading down towards the forest track proper. The rain, which had abated for most of the descent started up again and was heavy by the time we reached the lowest section of the track. There's a wee path just past a cairn on the right that we followed along the side of the river which leads towards the car park.
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Fungus Tree
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Was pretty miserable driving in the rain back down from Fort William - roads busy, with lots of surface water. Later than I'd intended, due to the lack of energy/zombification in the first part of the day which was fortunately banished by lunchtime food. Did stop at the Clachaig for something to eat and a pint of Tayberry beer
on the way home. All in all, a great weekend on some fantastic hills. I'm glad to have left them until I'd gained a bit of experience as i think the Devil's Ridge would have been much more of a scary proposal a few months back. But such an enjoyment now 
Some excellent photos there of the ridge - as with Silverhill, despite the claggy parts, you certainly had it a lot clearer than me as I saw almost nothing the whole time 
