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Looking for a medium-sized hill with a big personality and an opportunity for a Spring hillside wild camp, we settled on the impressive-looking Sgurr an Fhidhleir nestled beside Ben More Coigach in Assynt just north of Ullapool. The Coigach range is breath-taking in it's line-up of jaggy ridges and misty peaks.
Abandoning the car at the parking area just before the farmlands of Culnacraig, and lugging heavy overnight packs, we crossed the Allt nan Coisiche and headed up the steep boggy moorland.
The walk up the hillside adjacent to the burn is steep and long, and while waterlogged and uneven underfoot and with carrying heavy loads, a little bit challenging in places!
The reward for climbing so quickly and steeply are the incredible views behind you of the Summer Isles and over to An Teallach, Sail Mhor and Beinn Ghoblach are fantastic and get better, the higher you go.
Seeking out a good place to camp, the terrain really didn't offer an abundance of great camping spots, however just below the Fiddler where the Allt a Choire Reidh winds down the hill, is a small green haven just big enough for two small tents and a kitchen area
From a glorious Spring day, the weather (as forecast) had started to turn slightly with a chill coming in off the water and a thick mist marching up towards the camp, lingering heavily on the Beinn nan Caorach just above us and settling down on the ridge of Coigach.
With a daypack and poles, we set off for the summit of Sgurr an Fhidhleir as the mist continued to swirl around us, the higher we climbed.
As we neared the summit, the geology on the hill became a staggeringly impressive rocky landscape with sandbanks and rounded rocky shelves. The walking here is easy but steep in places, but the views across to Coigach with it's remaining snow patches were stolen from us by the mist and the going became tricky the worse the weather became.
Making a crucial decision as the weather worsened, we retreated from the summit just meters below it. Fears of difficult navigation back down the hill coupled with the cold and the threat of vertical drops all around us (and two boisterous collies) led us to the conclusion that we would be safer to try again in the morning
Overnight the weather worsened again with heavy rain (although I was warm and happy nestled inside my new Mammut Jura sleeping bag)
The morning brought more dreich mist and patchy showers, with the worst of the weather lingering heavily over the surrounding peaks. No summit this morning either
We packed up camp and began the steep descent down the undulating wet hillside as the weather began to improve enough to provide some more of the incredible views promised by this walk
