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Kintail Winter Wonderland - Day 1

PostPosted: Tue Feb 15, 2011 12:20 pm
by jonny616
Drove up from Glasgow in the rain on friday evening looking forward to a weekend of walking with the weather forecast looking ok for Saturday. Struggled to find our Ratagan cottage in the dark, which bodes well for route finding on the hill!
Nice dinner & a few beers in the kintail lodge. Most pleasent. Then whisky & banter in the cottage.

Up bright, but not too sparkey & off to the start point. A large layby not actualy marked on the map, but mentioned on this sites notes.
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Five sisters from our cottage
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Above the layby
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pano


Followed the WH desription although i would challenge the 'stalkers path is a delight' quote. Wet & boggy. Due to the snow line as we got further up is was not clear were the delightful path had gone so picked our way up & around to get behind the crags marked on the map.
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Crags in front of coire nan clach
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Tea break after the crags
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Looking back to the loch


This brought us out on the west ridge looking into the coire nan clach. At this point the weather had not been as promised (nothing new there), but we kept getting glimpses of bright blue sky leading us to beleive we were in for a good day. As we went along the ridge leading to the summit of Carn Ghluasaid the clag came in & visability was very poor, but i had taken a bearing so all was good. There are at least three cairns on the summit ridge & we eventualy came upon the one with the large drop behind it. Happy days, a quick photo & fresh bearing to Creag a Chaorain and off we go.
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On the west ridge
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Viability going
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Visability gone. Summit of Carn Ghluasaid


After about 15mins had a group chat & decided to call it a day as you could not see the person standing next to you never mind the stunning Kintail views. Check of the map, based on our rough location & the best route was direct into Coire nan clach & then walk out to the road. At about 650 meters we were out of the clag & could see the valley floor. Found a nice flat rock to lay out lunch picnic style. Then headed down, back to the cottage to watch the rugby followed by a lochside amble as it was a lovely afternoon in Ratagan. Go figure! Good day & very pleased with my navigation.
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Views from the loch side Saturday evening
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Re: Kintail Winter Wonderland - Day 1

PostPosted: Tue Feb 15, 2011 7:20 pm
by Alan S
A fine couple of reports there jonny,looks like you had a good time
We are hoping to get back up to kintail at some point this year so thanks for the reports :)
Like the last pic 8)

Re: Kintail Winter Wonderland - Day 1

PostPosted: Tue Feb 15, 2011 10:09 pm
by dooterbang
Nice report Jonny. Looks like the weather wasn't too kind.

I arrived late to KL Friday night - 11.15pm, due to an accident on the A82 near Luss.

Our group did 4 munros and a corbett on Saturday then had dins in th KL at night (doing a TR mora).

Shame didnt see you.

Re: Kintail Winter Wonderland - Day 1

PostPosted: Tue Feb 15, 2011 10:15 pm
by rocket-ron
Dooterbang. Me and my mate graeme met you just as you where going up the first brother. We where heading over to ciste dhubh

Re: Kintail Winter Wonderland - Day 1

PostPosted: Tue Feb 15, 2011 10:18 pm
by dooterbang
rocket-ron wrote:Dooterbang. Me and my mate graeme met you just as you where going up the first brother. We where heading over to ciste dhubh


The Inverness duo :D

How was Ciste dubh?

We got fab views at Saileag.

Ill be posting a TR mora with a few vids along with it.

Hope that photo i took was ok.

Re: Kintail Winter Wonderland - Day 1

PostPosted: Tue Feb 15, 2011 10:25 pm
by rocket-ron
Ciste dubh great hill do. Plenty of foot prints to follow :D
Both of us where really struggeling for energy to do the corbett. So missed that out. We where delighted to get back to clunie for a pint. Greame then had to cycle down the road at clunie in the dark to get pick up. As we could not get 1 of the bikes tyres pump up.
Yeah photo came out well cheers :D

Re: Kintail Winter Wonderland - Day 1

PostPosted: Tue Feb 15, 2011 10:35 pm
by dooterbang
Yeah Ciste Dubh was highlight of my day also. I have great vids of our group coming up its ridge.

You can nab that corbett the next time, your close enough :) . Good effort though.

Bit of a bummer about the bike eh. Dodgy cycling in the dark!!.

Hope the weather is decent this weekend - im in Newtonmore. You guys getting out again?

Re: Kintail Winter Wonderland - Day 1

PostPosted: Wed Feb 16, 2011 9:35 am
by jonny616
alan s wrote:A fine couple of reports there jonny,looks like you had a good time
We are hoping to get back up to kintail at some point this year so thanks for the reports :)
Like the last pic 8)


Thanks Alan

Its a great part of the world. Did the south shiel ridge last year. Thinking about combining the brothers & sisters for next year.

Re: Kintail Winter Wonderland - Day 1

PostPosted: Wed Feb 16, 2011 9:40 am
by jonny616
dooterbang wrote:Nice report Jonny. Looks like the weather wasn't too kind.

I arrived late to KL Friday night - 11.15pm, due to an accident on the A82 near Luss.

Our group did 4 munros and a corbett on Saturday then had dins in th KL at night (doing a TR mora).

Shame didnt see you.


Thanks

The weather was much worse at the east end of Glen Shiel, but HayHO. Still enjoyed it

Sorry about your trafic strife. I got stuck on that road, further up, when a post office van managed to get stuck on a dry stone wall, never worked out how it got on there :?

Look forward to reading your report.