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My first Walkhighlands report! And what a walk to do...
Four of us (friends / work colleagues, ranging in age from 50 to 26, I'm 42) set off to do the Aonach Eagach on Saturday with the promise of reasonable weather. Myself and one other chap are preparing for a shot at the 11 munros of the Cuillins in Skye in August so the Aonach Eagach seemes like ideal preparation, at least in terms of exposure etc.
It's pretty much the standard route. We set off from Allt-na-reigh in the rain, but with the prospect of the weather improving and the cloud lifting. It's a stiff climb right from the start and we were soon at the summit of Am Bodach.
From there, we made our way along the ridge, overcoming the succession of obstacles along the way. At no stage were we left unsure of how to progress. The scrambling itself is reasonably simple, with the challenge coming from the exposure. But even then, we weren't hanging around to contemplate the what-ifs and none of us really felt in any danger at any stage. It was just thoroughly good fun. The highlight for me is the chimney climb relatively early on, but there are so many excellent steps to get over it's hard to pick anything out.
Once along the ridge and onto Sgorr nam Fiannaidh, the visibiliy was stunning and we took the decision to make our way down per the SMC route directly to the South.
NB this is not the Clachaig Gully, but East of there. It's a tough descent through scree and steep grass slopes. The potential to slip is there and you can see how easy it would be to injure yourself, but perhaps without the potential to kill yourself as via the Clachaig Gully. To be honest, it's really just the knees that take a battering on the route down we took.
Once back to the road, the lure of the Clachaig Inn was there, as you'll see from the GPS route. A quick pint of fresh orange and lemonade before the drive back to Edinburgh. A fantastic day out, and definitely one of the best walks in Scotland.
If anyone's interested, I've posted a film of edited highlights on YouTube from the day taken with a new camera I recently acquired. The footage is a little shaky, so there's a risk of inducing motion sickness, not to mention vertigo. I don't seem to be able to post a link to it at this stage, but if anyone wants to see it it's here youtu.be/AlgGiKqdvxU
Off to the Lake District in a couple of weeks with the prospect of doing Striding Edge, and perhaps Sharp Edge with my nine-year-old daughter. The real dare-devil in the family.
