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Back in May,a motley gang of us visited Kintail for the first time,kipping at the Ratagan hostel and walking the five sisters then the South Shiel ridge the next day.Our preparation for these hikes was probably no the best,sitting in the hostel or the pub scooping large amounts of beer,whisky,vodka,rum and whatever else we could get our mitts on made for serious hangovers on the hikes ,not good at all
Now it was time for our return ,this time staying in the trekkers lodge at the Kintail Lodge hotel,would we have learned our lesson and stay of the booze this time?.............well naw
After a drive up on Thursday night and a qiuet-ish night in the digs,myself,Charlie,Kev and Chris set of early to tackle the brothers ridge and possibly tag on Ciste Dubh at the end.Starting at the Saileag end with a car dumped at Cluanie we started the steep climb up to the Bealach an Lapain.Steeeeeeeep as anythin' this climb,but we pressed on and were up at the Bealach in good time,brief views over to the Saddle and the south shiel ridge were had but much of the day was spent in the cloud but we still really enjoyed this walk,some narrow bits on the ridge we had to take extra care on what with the snaw and that but still soft enough not to need crampons for the day at least.
- Friday's start..........steep!
- one of the south Shiel peaks peeks out,Maol Chinn Dearg i think
- Bealach na Lapain
- Pigeon,Chris and Charlie on Saileag
- ridge to Sgurr a Bhealaich Dearg
- taking a bit of care on this bit
- Kev and Chaz on S B D
- Soggy summit pic on Aonach Meadhoin
The clouds broke briefly now and again letting us get some good pics and views.A brief ponder on Sgurr an Fhuarail on whether to go on to Ciste Dubh or head down to the Cluanie inn for a beer and burger chips was had(guess what won that contest
)and we were down in about 6 and 3 quarter hours.
- down Loch Cluanie
Back to the hotel then where it started to get a bit messy.Gavin and Ian joined us at night in the hotel bar where there was a halloween party on .Fast forward to Saturday morning and most of us were feeling severly under the weather.Today's walk was Carn Ghluasaid,an easy enough start to this one normally but i was struggling big time,lagging behind the rest of the gang,felt a bit better though when i caught up with Gavin who looked even worse than me
Lesson not learned yet again
Still no point moaning about it so onwards and upwards to work the hangover away.Gradually started to feel better as the day wore on,a good walk this,quite tough in the snow again and had to don the crampons once or twice.
- Saturday,on the path to Carn Ghluasaid
- jake
- braw
- bit of a whiteout on Sgurr nan Conbhairean
- Gavin and Chris on Sail Chaorainn
- more brawness
Weather a bit better than yesterday especially toward the end when the views down to Nevis etc. really opened up.
- more whiteout
- heading down toward the ridge above the Gorm Lochan
- Charlie
8 hours all in ,no bad considering how we felt at the start and we all headed back to the hotel for more of the same(except one of us who might never actually drink again
)A great weekend again,Chris done really good on his first winter hikes and Kev got round another 6 Munro's no problem
Trekkers lodge was good as well
We shall return