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For day five we parked the van at the end point for an anti-clockwise round of Beinn Eighe and cycled to the start point.
The start is not as steep as Liathach, although the section after Coire an Laoigh stiffens up, and the shale underfoot often makes purchase difficult, so walking poles were a great help (especially with a few days walking in the legs already).
Sadly no views again from the first munro of the day.
As we had started early and made fairly good time we decided not to stop and eat, but pushed on towards the second munro - pausing en route at the bealach between Coinneach Mhor and Ruadh-stac Mor for lunch. Which meant that when we got to he summit we just took a photo and headed back to the bealach for the descent.
The route down towards Loch Coire Mhic Fhearchair is extremely steep, and whilst there is plenty of shale, which might usually allow for a bit of ski/surfing there are also plenty of really big loose blocks that could easily turn an ankle or go tumbling down to hit someone below. So Neil set off a good bit after me to make sure I wasn't in the firing line. The shale and loose rock eventually peters out and if like me you had initially kept to the right of the gulley this now required a long descent over huge boulders to reach the loch-side.
We followed the track round to the end of the loch for our second snack of the day, and a great spot for a few more photos.
The path back round Sail Mhor is easy underfoot, although quite long. Half-way down we saw our first walkers of the day - a family who were going to the coire. Eventually we got back to the van and an absolute plague of midges, so hurried off to the start point to collect our bikes, then drove back to Craig to finish off in that area.
