Walkhighlands

On Wednesday we set off very early from Edinburgh with plans to reach Fort William and have a mountaineering day on the Ring of Steall. However, when we got there the weather was much worse than forecasted, so we decided to head east rather than spend a day in the clag.

It turns out the weather wasn’t that much better in the east, so we opted for A’Chailleach and Carn Sgulain, near Newtonmore. We hadn’t done these two munros before, and since they are fairly straightforward rounded hills they seemed like a good option for a bad weather day!



Before heading into the cloud…

The snow line was sitting at around 700m. This route is meant to be nice on the skis, however, we didn’t fancy carrying them up to reach the white stuff so left them in the car…will go back another day

It snowed constantly from around 1.30pm until we were beneath the freezing level on our way back to the car where it turned to light rain.

The rather featureless plateau between the two summits gave us some good navigation practice – timing and pacing required!


The Limit of 'person' visibility


Summit of Carn Sgulain



Not far to go now…

We rounded the day off with some chippy chips and the headed back down to Edinburgh.

Note:
After the recent snowfall (26/01/14) the conditions will most likely be considerably more snow underfoot and a lower snowlevel.

Looked like you had a good anyway. Better to keep the ROS for a summer cloud free day. Did you need crampons for those hills or was the snow soft enough for just nthe boots. Cheers.

No crampons required on the 22nd...however things may have changed now. I certainly wouldn't head up there without them! I would imagine the snow line is much lower now too after all the recent snow fall

ROS is definitely a winter one for us! Hopefully get some blue skies this season

Thanks. Fingers crossed for blue skies and good luck on ros.