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Friday 25th October - Sgorr na Diollaid7.85km
843m ascent
3 hours 35 mins
I’d arrived in Inverness on the train late the night before, so we weren’t exactly up and about early on Friday morning. But typical for a WH meet the Friday weather was looking better than the Saturday so it was worth getting going.
It was an exciting day as I’d never been to this neck of the woods, so it was an all new thing as we took the road past Cannich and parked up at the end of the track to Muchrachd. So far the sun was shining and all was well
We wandered across a boggy section before picking up a faint path which led us through some cracking autumnal colours
Big tree
We climbed higher and suddenly got brutally attacked by the wind, which wouldn’t have been much more than a mild annoyance except that it also started raining
Unfortunately the rain then turned to snow and we were being battered from one side. It was so hard to walk that I didn’t notice that I was getting soaked on one side
As soon as I did notice we dived behind some rocks to add waterproof trousers. It was also freezing
We continued and soon all the cold and wind and snow was all worth it as the clouds cleared and we could see down to Loch Mullardoch and the big hills
And the next shower coming in
And the blue sky again
Malky drying off
The views are back again
Snow ahoy – fortunately the path, although faint, was still there
We dropped into a wee hollow where there was a massive bog to cross (thank goodness for gaiters!) before we were climbing again
Icicles
The snow line was reached – we may have made a poor route choice here and ended up in the corrie (although it was probably a good decision as we became a little sheltered from the wind there!)
Good views across to Carn Gorm
Looking down Glen Cannich
The edge of the corrie
We walked up the corrie before starting to traverse diagonally across the hillside and eventually we were on ridge
Looking back down to the corrie
Looking over to Kintail
Spin drift on Sgurr na Lapaich
The Strathfarrar Munros
Walking along the ridge now there were a couple of lumps and bumps to walk over – the deep powder snow was making walking quite difficult so I started walking in Malky’s footsteps, which was great until his big man legs started making steps my wee legs couldn’t reach
The final pull to the summit
The Monar hills
Sgurr na Lapaich
South Mullardoch
We managed the final climb onto the summit and clambered up a slightly icy large rock. We were there
The views were awesome
Glen Strathfarrar
Looking down the ridge to the northern Mullardoch hills
Strathfarrar hills
Looking back to the summit
Inverness and the Kessock bridge
It was a bit windy up top for this
And it was time to go – it was very cold despite the sun and we were looking forward to a warm shower and a cup of tea!
Looking to the wind farms on the Monadhliath
Dropping back down…
Lovely colours again!
We managed to miss the path near the bottom (Malky’s fault!) so we had to crash through some bracken to pick it back up…
Malky leading the way (often a bad idea
)
Looking back up
Back at the car we removed some of our many layers and drove back down the road to Bearknock Hostel where folk were starting to arrive for the meet. A nice hot shower and dinner later we were ready for bed
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Saturday 26th October - Beinn a' Mheadhoin6.15km
421m ascent
2 hours
Saturday morning – the weather was pretty shocking all day, but we wanted to get out and do something. David had arrived late the previous evening and he offered to give us and our bikes a lift to Cannich. We actually ended up getting a lift a lot further into Glen Affric where we parked up near Chisholme Bridge.
It was still raining but soon eased enough to tempt us out! We decided to head up a wee hill and then see how we felt about the cycling aspect of the day
Actually as we headed through the forest path the sun came out and we were hoping that maybe the forecast might have improved….
As we met the track it started raining again, so we stopped to add waterproofs before plodding onwards, in slightly less good spirits than before
We gained as much height as we could on the track and broke out onto the open hill just before a large gate. We were now trudging through grass and other rubbish and the rain was getting heavier
Looking up towards Tom a’ Choinnich
Looking back down to the loch
Although the rain was on and off, looking back at the photos makes the day look a lot better than I’d remembered
David, who had forgotten his waterproof trousers, forged on ahead
We kept on plodding upwards, it got rockier towards the top and we took different routes, all of which were rubbish
Looking towards the high hills in a brief moment of clearing
Looking back down to Loch Beinn a’ Mheadhoin
David and Malky on the summit – there was a lot of ice and bits of snow up here
Summit of Beinn a’ Mheadhoin – can we get out of here now?!
Looking back East down the ridge
Rather than trying to do anything clever we headed back down the way we had come up – it was still raining and we were craving tea and cakes
It was a quick march back to the van where we bumped in Darren with his bike. The rain started pelting down again and we all retreated to our collective vans. We decided to drive down to the end of the loch as I’d never been there – the sun even popped out for enough seconds to get a photo
We stopped for tea and cakes near Cannich before David decided to head up another wee hill. We couldn’t be bothered with another wet hill or a bike ride and really fancied making use of the bath in our bathroom
Several hours later we were warm and dry and flew to another spectacular victory in the quiz
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Sunday 27th October - Carn nam Bad8.23km
352m ascent
1 hour 50 mins
Sunday morning – we had a relaxed breakfast and sadly another look at the forecast suggested it wasn’t going to improve at all so we decided to go for a wander up Carn nam Bad – an easy track and a short climb.
We drove a few miles down the road towards Cannich before finding a spot to get the car off the road. Waterproofs were on straight away
We headed through a gate and followed the good track through the edge of the forest, occasionally popping out and getting glimpses of views
David and Malky, both excited about a wet Marilyn
Looking back – a brief pause in the showers
The track climbed steadily until we could see Loch Carn nam Badan
We left the track and headed across some rough ground onto Carn nam Bad
We could almost make out some of the higher hills in the distance
There was plenty of steep and difficult ground and it was getting very cold and windy as we became more and more exposed
Finally on the summit of Carn nam Bad!
We didn’t spend a lot of time on the summit – the wind was blasting at us and it was pretty unpleasant. There were some nice views as we dropped off the top though
Back on the track it was a case of plodding through varying states of wet and windiness
The boys very excited to be nearly back
Back at the car we headed for Inverness for a quick cup of tea and a shower before the long drive back to Glasgow, where I enjoyed being chauffeured and made preparations for the next meet – my penance for winning the quiz
A fabulous meet – many thanks to David for organising, and here’s to the next one
