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I find Faochag fascinating as it rises from near sea level as a perfect come shaped mountain, an individual amongst the lines of ridges. The knowledge that Sgurr na Sgine lays hidden behind it just adds to its appeal. Far too imposing to be just a descent route for The Saddle. Combining a longed for walk up Faoshag with a ridge scramble up to the summit of Sgurr na Sgine made a near perfect day, add in the sunshine, the views, the completely unspoilt Coire, and reaching our 100th Munro, who says you can't have it all
.
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- The route
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- 07:55 Faoshag here we come.
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- Faoshag Meallan Odhar and Sgurr na Forcan
The path crossed the stream, up and through a gate then began its uncompromising climb upwards. Mainly through grass and heather going round or over rocky outcrops. By the time we reached the fence and at about 300m it felt like we had been ascending for a long time. The path follows the edge of the slope, making it feel a bit exposed as you look down into Coire Toitell.
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- A small plateau, good spot to rest
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- With great views across Kintail
As you gain height, you see hints of a grassy top, but a bit higher and the smaller rocky top peeps above it. The cone narrows, with an increasing numbers of boulders and the path again wanders around rocky outcrops then up a grassy dome to the summit and a superb viewpoint.
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- 11:00 Faoshag summit. Looking towards The Five Sisters.
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- The ridge leading to Sgurr na Sgine
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- Jeremey Jetboil boiling letting of some steam with as we admire the The Saddle
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- More summit views.
11:25 we set out on the ridge to Sgurr na Sgine but rather before the ascent we turned left to cross a delightful, unspoilt Coire, to reach the NE ridge.
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- Our route up Sgurr na Sgine
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- The Coire with Lochans, bubbling burns, a bit bouldery and no evidence of human traffic.
Having crossed the Coire we climbed up the steep grass to gain the ridge, but kept getting pushed upwards and realised we would be too high on the ridge, so retraced our steps and gained the ridge just below a grassy knoll.
More steep and exposed grass, then some very vegetated rock
. But once on the crest it was excellent scrambling on mainly clean rock.
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- Hard very vegatated start.
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- Superb spiky crest
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- Some narrow sections and a bit of hand traversing
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- Needed to be careful of loose lichen
The scrambling was sustained and the lack of bypass paths gave it a real sense of adventure, the ridge led directly up to the summit
but was sadly over far too soon
.
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- 13:40 Sgurr na Sgine.
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- Toasting our 100th Munro with a cup of fruit tea
We met our first other walkers of the day, a couple from Fort Willaim, who like us had been blessed by a great week of sunshine in Kintail and Skye. Another guy came and went, and we just sat around drinking tea.
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- 14:15 and time to move
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- The Forcan Ridge from Sgurr na Sgine
We followed the standard route down.
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- Impressive views on the descent
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- along the ridge to Faochag
.
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- We then descended to Coire Mhalagain
crossing the Coire to follow the Forcan Ridge bypass path along the dyke to Meallan Odhar. In the Coire we met the Joss, who was undertaking an impressive feat. He had walked, backpacking, from Lands End and was on his to John O'Groats averaging over 20 miles a day, to raise money for the Snowdrop Trust (which support children with terminal illness).There is more about Joss on here
https://www.justgiving.com/fundraising/josstrekslejog. Joss was on his way to the Sheil Bridge campsite and great company until we parted ways just past Meallan Odhar.
We continued down to the road.
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- Final views of Faoshag. And back to the car for 18:30.
