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Part 1 - TorridonTuesday 3rd July 2018 – Cul Mor13.37km
793m ascent
4 hours 45 mins
I woke up after a very relaxed nights sleep. I was in no hurry to get moving so had a chilled breakfast and sat around enjoying the sun.



It was already an incredibly hot day



Eventually I got my stuff together and headed up the road – An Teallach was looking awesome


I stopped off in Ullapool for supplies….

If only everything were so black and white


….before continuing North and parking up at Knockan and looking up at my target


I headed up the path towards Cul Mor. It was insanely hot and I was finding it hard work with the big pack. Although it looked like an easy walk, it was feeling anything but…


Once on the top of Meallan Diomhain I took off towards the ridge which gave me some awesome views


The way ahead….it looks steep


As I climbed higher I could see over to the other side of Coire Gorm

The last steep section was hard work with the heavy pack but at last there I was – on the summit of Cul Mor. And it was awesome






I dropped just off the summit and found me the perfect camp spot







Zoomed to An Teallach


There were some perfect rocks for sitting so I set myself up with dinner, hot chocolate, a book and most importantly, my camera


It was absolute magic sitting out there

It was so warm and still that I was lying out there until about 9.30 before I started needing to put clothes back on



The sun finally began its descent




The sun disappeared leaving an amazing pink sky


It felt really special witnessing such an amazing night in such a awesome part of Scotland

I finally crawled into bed when I realised it wasn’t going to get any darker


The next morning I got up for sunrise and it didn’t disappoint



Then I went back to sleep, because it was stupidly early

When I woke up several hours later, the sun was properly up and the mountain was baking in the summer heat again



After chilling out for a bit I was running out of water so needed to head down. I made my way towards the other summit – Creag nan Calman


From there I carried on down the ridge, skirted around Meallan Diomhain and met up with the outward path. I met quite a lot of folk on their way up who thought I was a bit nuts

Arriving back at Knockan it was Clegg-maggeddon so I did a lot of dancing around trying to get away from the bastards

Before having a wee wash and heading around to Lochinver.
Wednesday 4th July 2018 – Suilven23.58km
993m ascent
6 hours 40 mins
Malcy_c and I had been trying to meet up for a walk for a while but time off, weather and injuries always seemed to have got in the way. However he was able to sneak out on Wednesday evening so we met up at the Glencanisp Lodge parking area at 5.30 and set off down the path.
Soon Suilven came into view and it was looking awesome


Canisp

I’d forgotten about the steep bits on the track – you see track and assume it’s going to be flat

However, good progress was made along the track; we turned along the new path just before Loch na Gainimh and although this was now more uphill it was still easy going.
Final water stop

The path goes up there apparently


We reached where the path people had got to – some wee boggy sections before we hit the steep bit but nothing was very wet here anyway.
Starting up the steep section we were sweating a lot as it was incredibly muggy and we were fighting off the clegs as it was sheltered


It was tough work with the heavy packs – looking back from near the bealach with Quinag in the background

Finally on the ridge the gradient eased, phew


How to build a wall, eh Donald Trump


It was an easy walk to the summit where the views were just awesome


The classic Suilven shot

Summit cairn

It was an incredible evening – despite the late start we had plenty of evening left




We got the tents up and I brewed up some water while Malcy went for a wander to the cliffs….by the time he returned I’d managed to pour boiling water down my leg

Dinner done we explored the summit a bit more – fortunately it was a bit more windy up top which kept the beasties away





It was another amazing evening and we sat out enjoying it until this happened and put an end to the lightshow


It got a wee bit windy overnight so didn’t have the best sleep (trying to sleep on a slope didn’t help either

) and sunrise wasn’t good, but by the time I got up it had cleared and had turned into a lovely morning

It was lovely but a bit chilly so I invented the sleeping-bag-cloak and we spent hours just taking in the views and chatting away about….whatever

Lochinver

It was after midday by the time we actually got going, and we spotted a few good camp spots on the ridge on the way down – good incase of windier conditions



It’s an awesome hill


We met people coming up the steep section as we slipped and slid our way down it….we were glad to be down it


Back on good paths we were able to put down some miles again….

We stopped off in Suileag bothy so Malcy could bag it (I’d been there before

) before finally making our way back towards Glencanisp

Malcy didn’t need much persuading to go for pie in the Lochinver Larder, and then to find a cracking campspot above Achmelvich where we enjoyed a very chilled out evening looking at about a million different possible routes and daft plans
Part 3 - Walking on Sunshine