A9 Munros
Posted: Mon Mar 08, 2010 10:20 am
Sorry, no photos but just wanted to flag this up as a great route under current conditions. Setting off from Balsporran Cottages we had to negotiate some deep snow drifts before gaining easier ground on the NE ridge of Geal Charn. There was enough soft snow to make the going quite hard but we didn’t our crampons at any stage during the day. We made the summit of Geal Charn in about an hour and a quarter and then descended to the bealach between Geal Charn and A’Mharconaich before taking a slanting line across the corrie towards the summit. Then SE along the broad ridge until we picked up a line of fence posts which led all the way to Beinn Udlamain. Due to the very poor visibility we had to walk on a bearing for a lot of the time as we couldn’t see from one fence post to the next. We did see quite a few mountain hares lolloping about though: they appeared to turning grey again (for the Spring?!). From Beinn Udlamain we descended S to Carn ‘Ic Loumhaidh and then on up the slopes of Sgairneach Mhor. After walking along the ridge for about a km we descended into Coire Dhomhain the snow getting deeper as we lost height. The burn crossing was easy but after that the walk back to the car was a bit of a trial as the path was covered in deep snow in places and we had to walk about 5km on the cycle track alongside the A9. But it was worth it for a brilliant day out. We had white out conditions on all the summits (and the forecast said there was an 80% chance of cloud free Munros!).