Roughly one hundred square miles of moor and mountain, in great part without any tracks or man-made features, sprawl to the south of the road to Ullapool. Here are 10 “Munro” mountain summits, arranged in groups of one, two, three, and four.
Angela's wish to climb the “three” and the southern part of the “four” coincided for me with recollections of a memorable couple of winter days; although I was dismayed to find it was 15 years ago in March 2008 ! That had been a day of big cornices. Two pictures contrast then and now.
30 metres beyond the outlet of Loch a' Bhraoin a marker post and argocat trail led towards Meall a'Chrasgaidh via a rackety bridge at approx 163748.
It was surprising, at the 934-metre summit, to see the significantly-larger Carn na Criche (961) only 1200 metres off to our left. This, however, is decreed to be merely a “Top”. (? ! ?)
There beckoned the NE Ridge of Sgurr nan Clach Geala...... narrow and rocky.
Coming down this in 2008, Paul and I had cut steps across a short icy section. An old technique quicker than fiddling with crampons to cross a short difficulty.
Today, going up, the snow was very hard (despite the sunshine) after an overnight freeze, and at several places it was just possible to teeter carefully in the frozen shapes of old kick-ins
After the glorious panorama from the summit, (and a bite to eat) a long long slope led down. I remembered how Paul and I had struggled up this in hail wind and mist “Bent double like old beggars under sacks” (Wilfred Owen) to be greeted by a sudden clearing at the top.
Finally on to Sgurr nan Each via an attractive reverse-curve ridge. Here on the previous trip had been the big cornice.
The long walk out follows a (mostly) decent path, and our joy was complete when we located the old bridge to get us back across the Allt Breabaig.
Our next mission, to the two southern Munros on the ridge of four, required an approach (plus return) alongside the Abhain a' Ghuibais Li stream. Although we began along the good track through the forestry, and then used a very rough path to get to the un-marked second bridge, (252712) this was tedious work. The moorland beyond the second bridge and over Meallan Bhuidhe is very rough going, and the broad ridge up to An Coileachan 923 m did not give much relief.
Things were much better along the tops (2km each way to Meall Gorm and back). But then we had to tackle the long return, another 8 km (5 miles). It's perhaps debateable, whether it would have been easier to go over all 4 Munros and cut out one of the valley legs. I certainly recall doing the southern pair of mountains quite comfortably from Fannaich Lodge on another visit. So to do these two in isolation, I'd recommend sorting out a bike-in from Grudie on the A832.
So there we were. Angela had 5 more to add to her Munro tally. I had enjoyed a long walk down memory lane. http://www.yorkmc.org.uk/archive/reports/fannaichs-in-the-snow/
Oh ! Did I mention that Walter Wall had been with us the whole time ? He's a great purveyor of sunshine, but now I have to worry about the law of averages striking back !!
ANDREW
Excellent trip report Andrew very enjoyable read and envious of your breaking law of averages. Your tail when the weather shall not be so bad I’m sure will be equally enjoyable to read, and I’m sure a more harrowing tail to tell.