Fannaichs & The Northwest

15th - 16th March 2008

The Eastern Fannaichs are a great crescent of 4 mountains and high connecting ridges, facing the Ullapool road across a bowl of moorland several miles wide. "If it gets dark before we finish, we'll cross the moor with torches" said Paul; and so after a cozy bunkhouse night in Inverness, we were up by Loch Glascarnoch ready to set off at 9.00.

A couple of hours marching got us up into the snowline and finally onto the first summit of Beinn Liath Mor Fannaich (954 metres) . (0258 0260)

At last there was a decent weather forecast in the NorthWest, little wind, and clear views down to Ullapool, with only occasional pieces of cloud touching the hills.

Sgurr Mor at 1110 metres towered ahead,

across a sharp drop and then up a large snowfield.

The snow was soft and fairly fresh:- ours were the first footprints to appear across the unmarked white landscape. Recent high winds had left their mark with some sizeable cornices on the lee side of the summit.

Briefly the visibility disappeared but with a little help from the compass we were soon off Sgurr Mor and onto the long connecting ridge to Meall Gorm and An Coilleachan, 4 miles south.

The Fannaich ridge is a great high viewpoint, from which we picked out the Torridon Hills, An Teallach, Fionn Bheinn, Beinn Dhearg near Ullapool, and Ben Wyvis, all decorated with sparkling white tops.

Nearer to hand, in the early afternoon, came the col before the last summit. The route is supposed to descend from here, and to the north there are cliffs ...complete with an interesting gulley line.

But the lip of the small coire was heavily laden with corniced hanging snow. No way down then.

Fortunately it wasn't hard to work our way back down the mountain slopes from An Coilleachan summit, to the lower coire below the cornices. Which just left the long march out...about 8.5 km back to the road.

At 6.00 pm, fatigued and a bit chilled, we drove to the end of the Loch, and the Alltguish Inn. No warmth or bar meals however...it was so chilly in the bar that we went & got duvet jackets to down our pint!

The possibility of staying there was quickly binned, and for the sake of 25 minutes drive it was round to the Ledgowan Hotel at Achnasheen, where the "work in progress" nature of the bunkhouse is amply offset by the luxurious, warm and friendly facilities of the rather grand hotel. A bar meal, then coffee and a piano player. Tough stuff!

More of the Same, for Sunday, with another good forecast. Kenders, sadly, had pulled a big blister, and was obliged to have coffee and newspapers in Ullapool. Paul and I set off for the three central Fannaichs, heading first down the long valley of the Allt Breabaig and then from the bealach at its end, up towards Sgurr nan Each (926m).

The climb involved a coire like yesterday's........heavily snowed with a rocky line at half height. We outflanked this by a rising traverse up one side, across ground which would have been avalanche-prone if the snow cover had been heavier. As it was, a glance above showed to cover to be fairly thin on this aspect, and there were just a few soughs of snow rolling down in places.

The narrow ridge to Sgurr nan Each is a beautiful double bend, round which we made our footprints.... keeping well back from the corniced edge!

Snow showers came and went, at times concealing and then revealing the surrounding views.

The next task was the central summit of Surr nan Clach Geala (1080 metres). The southern ridge is a long uniform slope.

Here was slow putting one foot in front of another, plodding uphill "bent double like old beggars under sacks" [to quote Wilfred Owen] with plenty of time to remember how tired were were yesterday, how the weather is getting worse... then just before the summit, with a blast of trumpets and a heavenly chorus, first a blue shadow appears in the grey, and next news Paul is silhouetted against a glittering deep blue sky.

The summit ridge was a great white sunny roof; we strode across to the summit at the north end to get our bearings off, whilst the visibility was still good.

Things got even better: the NE ridge was an absolutely classic mountain scene. Sloping steeply down, the narrow edge was formed from a steep snow slope sweeping up from the left, to big cornices over an awesome drop on the right side.

So sticking to the left (!), axes at the ready, we made our way by kicking steps down; until in a shadowy spot things hardened up and for a few icy yards, it was back to the olden days as we stooped to cut steps... slash, slash, step, step.

Another wide bealach, another snow shower hiding the hills again. And then came a final short pull onto Meall a'Chrasgaidh - which would have overlooked our start point if we could have seen anything - followed by a stroll down steepish ground into the heather and finally the valley... and there was Richard back from lunchtime duty, ready to drive us off home.

Nice one chaps

ANDREW