I had left Skye early on Wednesday and the sun was still shining, so I thought I would fit in another walk on the way home. I was missing A’ Chràilaig’s sub-top, A’ Chioch, so this would make for an easy and quick excursion just off the A87 at Loch Cluanie. I parked up in the layby west of the bridge over the Allt a’ Chaorainn Mhoir and walked the 300m or so to the start of the right of way path through to Allbeithe and Glen Affric. Almost immediately I turned off right onto a hill path marked by a small cairn and headed directly up the steep southwest face of A’ Chràilaig. This was a relentless pull for 500m of ascent. The path was dry and quite OK for most of the way, although the upper section from 700m or so was eroded and still boggy in spots. After an hour of grafting, I emerged on to the wide southern ridge of the hill. From there it was a much more pleasant stroll over sometimes grassy, sometimes stony terrain with a couple of short sharp climbs to reach the summit where there is a rather fine cairn. .The views all around were great, too many hills to name. A few walkers and runners were up there enjoying another day of sunshine.
To keep the walk short so I would not get home too late, I didn’t go any further along the ridge, but retraced my steps to the 1051m point at NH097144 and headed northeast towards A’ Chioch. The initial descent was very steep over grass and some stones, but it soon levelled out. The rest of the ridge out to A’ Chioch was just over 1km on really nice dry short grass – an absolute pleasure to walk on – or run on as a couple I met were doing. There was a small cairn on the ridge a few metres beyond the flattish area that the OS Map and my GPS reckoned was the 947m summit. Of course, I visited both points. After that I retraced my steps along the ridge to where the ground started to rise to meet the main A’ Chràilaig ridge. From here I headed south with the intention of traversing around and saving a 100m climb. This was a stupid idea really, as it was just a short climb to get back onto easy ground. Instead, I had to make my way over pathless terrain around the east side of the hill for well over 1 km, on sometimes very steep grass, before skirting below a crag and arriving back on the path near the 803m point at the southern end of the ridge. So much for saving energy, but in truth it was quite a short detour and because of the dry conditions, not that bad. Then it was into relentless descent mode, back to the car and home.
That should have been the last of my Loch Cluanie area Munro sub-tops cleared up, but unfortunately, if using my own (slightly OCD) metric for top bagging in which the tops must be all done together with their parent Munro, I forgot to include Stob Coire na Cralaig. I had been along the ridge over Stob Coire na Cralaig to Mullach Fraoch-choire 3 years ago, so I did visit it, but I guess I’ll need to return to A’ Chràlaig and visit both its tops on one outing or else I won’t be happy.
It was still a good half day out in the sun though, and a nice way to break the long drive from Glen Brittle to Aberdeenshire.