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Forecast looked good yesterday so I was looking for hills doable within 8hrs of daylight and starting on a main road, which would hopefully have been gritted. First time up to Kintail for these 3.
Left the car park about 9.15, crossed the road and followed the track to the phone mast. Back to car park:
Loch Cluanie:
Path leads uphill from phone mast:
Path was icy with deepish snow further up:
Over to the descent route, not too steep on the snowy part:
Path soon became covered in snow, I had been following someone's footprints (maybe from yesterday) so could tell where it was getting deep. Fairly awkward to walk on so I headed towards the rockier bits & just went straight up instead of zig-zagging. Further up:
Carn Ghluasaid is a bit of a boring mound on top, still the snow was holding my weight more often up here so musn't grumble
View from the cairn at the cliffs:
Route onwards, up to Creag a'Chaorainn then Sgurr nan Conbhairean:
Looking back to Carn Ghluasaid from Creag a'Chaorainn, could walk on snow:
Or icy rock:
Towards the top of Sgurr nan Conbhairean, I actually lost my GPS here and backtracked to find it. Finally checked the rucksack and I'd put it in a different pocket d'oh
:
Cairn at the top:
Route to 3rd Munro, Sail Chaorainn. Not much reascent to the top:
South Glen Shiel ridge:
Over to Ben Nevis:
A'Chralaig and Mullach Fraoch-choire:
Bit of cornicing:
Sail Chaorainn cairn, looking doon tae a wee glen:
Looking back towards Sgurr nan Conbhairean, would have to go back up to shoulder level then bypass around to the right for the descent:
The bypass path was snow-covered so I 'found' it using GPS:
Wee cairn at the end of the path:
Then turned right to the descent ridge, met another walker here who was getting some photos:
Down to a narrowish ridge with deep snow then the descent ridge to the left:
Deepish snow:
Then down the Meall Breac ridge:
Further down it got a bit craggy after the snowy bit and the path was fairly icy when we joined it. Crossed the burn lower down at the fence - there were stepping stones but they were slippy so we could compare stream crossing techniques: Andy fell over when he got safely to the other side whereas I preferred to slip up before I crossed
Walked back along the road to frosty cars, didn't take too long so stayed light the whole time. Nice looking hills around here, hopefully be back soon