Highlands Easter Mountains

Glen Shiel (holding the road from Inverness to Skye) has perhaps the best collection of narrow ridge walks of any single glen, taken as a whole.

I have known the Five Sisters in technical and serious form under hard neve. The Forcan Ridge is amongst the great classic scrambles, (II Winter) and whilst less demanding than Aonach Eagach, it does not have the same tedious descent and return road march. And of course the South Glenshiel Ridge is beloved of Munroists, for its “score” of 7 summits, although it is worth taking an opportunity, on a different day, to scramble the north ridge of Aonach air Crith which joins half way along. 

History too:- Sgurr nan Spainteach recalls a Spanish invasion force defeated here in 1719. Dr Johnson and James Boswell passed through in 1773 on their “Journey to the Western Islands” from Inverness to Skye. 

On our Easter trip, Steve M's ambitions were on the opposite side, giving us a couple of chunky 1200-metre days along narrow ridges just about clearing their coats of winter snow. 

The path up Carn Ghluasaid (957 m) is a delight: a stalkers path constructed by estate workers maybe 150 years ago, it weaves its way cunningly and at a steady gradient around obstacles. 

At the summit, there appear the dramatic northern corries of these mountains.

and it is straightforward to follow the coire rims onwards and upwards to Sgurr nan Conbhairean 1109 m.

Another downward rim, another mile of ridge, to Sail Chaorainn 1009 m. 

The pendulum swung violently the other way on Day 2. The path up A'Chraileag is brutally scraped by thousands of boots, without finesse or craft, in a direct line up steep ground. There's 500 metres of slow pain before it eases a bit, then another 400m of ridge up to the 1120 summit.

Here is an exceptional cairn..... maybe some sort of reward for effort ??

/

The north-east faces from here onwards were still holding sizeable snow cover. Mostly the ridge line was clear terra firma, but in several sections hard old snow up to a metre depth overlapped and called for attention. 

/A mile of ridge then up again to Stob Coire na Craileag. From here an extremely narrow ridge dog-legs east then north again to Mullach Fraoch-Choire.

This final section is dotted with rocky pinnacles.

My dim recollection was that in 1999 we had scrambled over these, but now, a clear pathway has appeared winding around them.

Looked OK, but almost ran out of road traversing a near-vertical rock face; the “path' less than 2 feet wide and the exposure pretty huge. Plus a couple of short clambers where a slip would be unthinkable. A long crack in the ground /sod indicated that this way will not exist too much longer. We returned same route. Carefully. Then once back past Stob Coire na Craileag we picked a way down the steep mountainside into the pass and south back to the road. 

On our third day, weather on the turn, we headed home via Dalwhinnie, paying a half-day visit to Meall Chuaich to bring Steve's tally up to six for the trip.

The walk-in is level, following a vast concrete water channel: but then battling uphill into a strong gusty wind felt a bit like hard work, so we weren't let off too lightly.

We had RV'd with Keith, using the Silverfjord Hotel at Kingussie for our first night. We might call it a trifle idiosyncratic or homely, and Steve winced at some of the paintwork, but it provided a clean comfortable room incl towels for £25 per head, so hats off. It also provided a good pub meal and beers at little more than half the price we paid at the Invergarry Hotel.

The Saddle Mountain Hostel at Invergarry has for decades been outstanding; and it was good to be there once again. (for £27.50 pppn). 

ANDREW