Walkhighlands

After the exertion of day one we both slept in and woke to the pitter-patter of rain on the van roof. We took our time over breakfast, but the weather didn’t look like improving, so at about 11am we set off from the forestry car park at Craig, crossed the road and level crossing and cycled east for about 800m before the track took us across the River Carron.
We followed the junction left that starts to climb immediately towards Sgurr nan Ceannaichean. Despite knowing the climb was not as prolonged as the previous day I couldn’t quite get to the top without getting off to stretch my lower back muscles a couple of times.

After passing the high point there is a bit of a descent, but not too steep, so it didn’t look as though it would be too tough on the way back. We followed the fairly rough path along the Allt a Chonais and after just over a kilometre we came to the first of the wire bridges across the river. A little way on a feint path leads down towards the river marked by a small cairn. There were already four bikes at this location, so we thought we might see a few others on the hills.

Leaving our bikes we followed the track to another wire bridge. Neil crossed with no issues then I followed. About halfway across I started to wobble, and started to laugh, and wobble even more. I was flipped backwards and forwards on the rope like a trapeze act – I’ve no idea how I didn’t go in the water. Neil was in tears of laughter,

Once I got across and composed myself we set off for the bealach – the path was like walking up a little stream, so by the time we got to the bealach my boots were sodden.

From the bealach we climbed east up the ridge towards Sgurr Choinnich, it was raining pretty hard and there was no visibility at the top (again). In fact we were so wet and cold we agreed to push on to Bealach Coire Choinnich without even stopping for a summit photo. At the bealach we stopped for a quick bite and a photo, although even the loss of height hadn't improved the weather much and we were both fairly miserable. A couple of guys just ahead of us climbed into their bothy bag to shelter from the element.



Fortunately the climb to Sgurr a Chaorachain is not too long, although I guess on the negative side it didn't really get the blood pumping too much to warm up either. Despite that we did pause at the summit for a photo.



We descended north dropping a couple of hundred metres in height before bearing NW and a steepish descent down the grassy and slippery slope until eventually the river came into view and we struck a line vaguely towards the track for the ascent of Sgurr nan Ceannaichean. On reaching the river there was little point in trying to find a ford as we were soaked through, but there's something about making the effort and we found a few big rocks we could hop across on.

We then walked back along the track about a kilometre to the bikes and the ride back. I was right that the return climb on the bike wasn't too bad and we were soon at the high point with a long and fairly quick descent, which was especially wonderful in the driving rain

Back at the van we stripped our wet kit off and changed into shorts and t-shirts, as it was hot and humid in the car park and within a couple of minutes we were mobbed by the midges We drove back to our parking spot, but the rain meant we had no chance to dry out kit, so faced the prospect of starting day three in wet gear

Hi snowdonia7,
That was me and my mate that got in the storm shelter for a brew, lunch and some respite from the weather.
We cut down off the hill and made it across the river that enabled us to join the wire bridge. Did not aid in staying any drier though!