free to be able to rate and comment on reports (as well as access 1:25000 mapping).
Staying near Achilitibuie in a rented house, I decided to tackle the northernmost of Munros first (I figure a two and a half hour drive from the holiday house is a lot more reasonable than a six and a half hour drive from home... so why not?!?). Rain had been constant overnight and into the morning, but the forecast was for it to brighten up so I set out with high hopes.
Long drive...!! Kept amused by the road-side warnings in alternating German and English, though.
Arrived at the Strathmore car park around midday and chose a spot at the northern end - big mistake. This end of the car park was muddy and particularly midge-infested, so after a couple of minutes I re-parked at the southern end.
Set off at 12.15pm with no queries as to where the start-point was...
Where not walking up what felt like part of a stream the path was, in many places, very muddy - not nice peaty mud that is both soft and firm, but proper mud... put-your-foot-down-and-wait-to-see-where-it-ends-up kind of mud... so I was particularly glad to be wearing gaiters.
The ascent was quick and relatively painless, however after a little over an hour I reached the cloud base. So much for it clearing up. There was a brief shower at the base of the cloud but after that just dampness. My pace altered a lot with the various changes in under-foot conditions and the steepness of the climb, but all in all I kept up a pretty good lick. Perhaps it was the lack of visibility, or maybe just me being somewhat out of practice, but this felt like the hill that kept on giving. Two or three times I thought I was rounding onto the summit only to see another mass looming ahead.
I stopped for a quick bite to eat at around 2.05pm - standing to eat as the terrain was becoming a bit muddy and water-logged again. Immediately afterwards the mud-factor increased but this turned out to be the final haul. I arrived at the summit almost exactly two hours after setting off with spectacular views, as you can see...
Although the wind wasn't strong it was cold. And somehow despite there being a decent sized shelter by the trig point I couldn't find a spot comfortable enough to sit in and have the celebratory cup of tea, so I began the descent at 2.30pm.
Again, the descent was pretty painless - the only problem sometimes being the mud factor and the uncertainty of having gained good purchase on the ground below. The cloud base had risen maybe 100m or so, but thankfully the summit hadn't cleared as soon as I had departed!
At 4pm I trudged back down to road level having made use of one of the many waterfalls to clean my boots and re-entered the car park, where I was greeted by a couple I had passed close to the summit who had boiled too much water on their camping stove and offered me a coffee - nice way to end the walk having a blether with them.
All in all a very enjoyable walk, but disappointing not to have experienced the view. Kind of to be expected though, isn't it? And so I cleaned up, changed and drove the long two and half hours on mostly single track roads back to the rented house... a little bit pleased to see that even Stac Pollaidh hadn't fully avoided the low cloud of the day...
A friend of mine has said she wants to keep Ben Hope for her last Munro (with Ben Lomond having been her first). On reflection, I would advise her not to - apart from the sheer distance involved in getting to it, if you wanted to bag your 283rd Munro in typical fashion with friends and family members alike tagging along it is not without its perils: steep in places, rocky at times, and (as I felt) deceptive in height - and then there is also the mud. It would probably put a dampener on the party if your inexperienced Uncle Fred was last seen at 3.20pm on his bum sliding towards a cliff-edge... Just a thought...!!
