The easiest Munro on Skye

This was the best day of glorious weather all week, and our best chance to get up into the Cuillin hills.  Given the conditions the walk wasn't that much harder than any of the Lake District walks, but you can see this wasn't much of a fun place to be in bad weather, or if we'd tried to go any further along the ridge.

Difficulty: 5.6

Walkers: Tim, Caroline, Isabelle (22), Evie (16), Poppy (13), Piper (4 1/2)

9:55, 0.0km 0h00 0m, Start (43)

13:36, 7.6km 3h40 915m, Bruach na Frithe (958, Munro)

17:16, 15.6km 7h20 993m, End (25)

We parked in the layby on the main road from Dunvegan where we were staying.  I was slightly paranoid that there wouldn't be space, given the ideal walking weather, but there was plenty and we only saw a very small number of people on our walk.  

The view to the Cuillin ridge, not long after setting off.

A little over 2h into the walk, time for a lunch stop in Fionn Choire, before we starting hitting the scree climb to the top of the ridge.

Looking back to the north west.

Finally at the top of the ridge, Bealach nan lice.

And another 30min of walking up, we were finally at Bruach na Frithe.  It was still t-shirt weather, after reading all the dire stories I knew that were really quite luck to have such good weather.  This picture is looking north east.

Another view, looking south, following the ridge all the way to Sgùrr Alasdair in the distance.  You can see why people get seducted by the idea of walking from one end to the other.  

I was keen to take Piper up Sgurr na Fionn Choire, so we found the way up, after a scrambling up a big rock to find it was a dead end.  I'm not Piper forgave me for helping her up that one for a few days.

Looking at Bruach na Frithe from Sgurr na Fionn Choire.  I got back down to meet the others, and we had a great bit of fun getting down the scree slope.  Caroline and Evie were determined not to listen to any advice and ended up taking a route that 'looked easier' but still took a very long time.

Finally back to safer ground.  Piper sought out some cooling water - the rocks had not treated her paws too kindly, so she got a few well deserved easy days after this one!

Ben More via A'Chioch

There was only one Munro that was almost convenient, and this is also miles away from any others, so good to tick it off.  We had to get the ferry across to the Isle of Mull, then drive up to where we could park off the road for this route.  I was very keen on doing the interesting way up, so that's the way we went.

Difficulty: 5.5
Walkers: Tim, Caroline, Isabelle (21), Grace (18), Evie (15), Poppy (12)
10:27, 0.0km 0h00 0m, Start (-12)
14:53, 7.5km 4h25 1085m, Ben More (966, Munro)
17:08, 13.8km 6h40 1089m, End (10)

The first easy climb up to the saddle point.

Piper was very keen to go over the saddle point and explore, rather than turning right and going up.

Views back north to where we're come from.

Piper having fun climbing up to A'Chioch.

Fairly narrow paths

Piper needed helping up a couple of the bigger steps but otherwise four paw drive was vastly superior.

Now the fun ridge approaches!

We did end up splitting on the way up, with Poppy and Piper going with me, and Isabelle and Grace helping Caroline up the steeper bits.  Grace provided the soundtrack to keep everyone's spirits up, with song like 'The Only Way Is Up', you get the picture.

View from the top!  Awesome to see this view.

The much more gentle way down.  It would have really not been as fun to go up this way.

 

Meagaidh Munros

For our final walk for this trip we were not looking so lucky with the weather, but determined to make the best of our opportunity to get more high walking in.  We were down to three with this walk.

Difficulty: 7.0
Walkers: Tim, Caroline, Poppy (8)
11:21, 0.0km 0h00 0m, Start (254)
13:29, 4.6km 2h08 749m, Carn Liath (1006, Munro)
15:18, 10.1km 3h57 965m, Stob Poite Coire Ardair (1054, Munro)
16:16, 12.6km 4h55 1155m, Creag Meagaidh (1128, Munro)
19:08, 20.8km 7h46 1251m, End (253)

We drove up to Loch Laggan and parked at the large car park on the north side at the Creag Meagaidh Nature Reserve.

For the start of this walk it was quite clear and flat.  This wasn't to last.

Commemorative photo of dry walkers.

As we climbed through up out of the nature reserve it started to get misty.

The view up ahead didn't look any less misty.

Final view of walkers before the rain set in.

And now on the way back, we started to see the loch again!  In between we'd walked quite a long way, lots of climbing, three munros, navigating by compass work across a featureless field after Creag Meagaidh, and many instances of trying to find a path to lose height on the way down.  Sadly none of this was dry enough for me to take my phone out to take photos, and even with a GoPro I suspect the photos wouldn't have looked that impressive!

Ben Nevis the fun way

Having already claimed the highest peaks in England and Wales, part of our objective this holiday was to finish the set with Ben Nevis.  Not quite in 24 hours, but comfortably within 12 months of each other...  We had identified what looked like the best day to get to the top to maximise the chance of a good view.

Difficulty: 8.0
Walkers: Tim, Grace (14), Poppy (8)
10:32, 0.0km 0h00 0m, Start (14)
14:47, 9.6km 4h14 1359m, Carn Mor Dearg (1220, Munro)
16:44, 11.8km 6h12 1695m, Ben Nevis (Beinn Nibheis) (1345, Munro)
19:35, 20.6km 9h03 1747m, End (14)

Now we'd thought carefully about route choice, and I had researched a few options.  However to keep things reasonable we did relent and pick the busy way up.  Well most of the way up.

Poppy putting on a good astonished face on hearing we're going up there.  However that girl is made of sterner stuff and was quite interested when I dropped hints that I might want to find a more interesting way up.

The route up the first 600m of ascent is fairly unremarkable, but the views kept getting better.

At this point we hit decision point, and split the party.  Caroline took charge of Isabelle and Evie, taking the express route to the top.  Grace and Poppy were keen to do the more fun way up, even after impressing on them that it was further, more climbing, and they had to be sensible.

Turning the corner we had the first view up the valley to the north of Ben Nevis, with the plan to cross over and find out way up the other side.

Stopping for a bite of lunch before the climb, Grace was trying hard to avoid the camera.

Views of the north face of Ben Nevis were pretty awesome.

Finally we gave up trying to find anything more than random sheep tracks and made our way up the slope.  It probably would have been faster to head further north first and get to the top of the ridge further back.

Grace didn't quite get out of shot fast enough at Carn Dearg Meadhonach.  Not isolated enough for a Munro, but still quite a view down to Fort William.

Looking the other way, this time towards our two Munros, and the walk in between.

Grace at the top of Carn Mor Dearg, with the famous arete leading to Ben Nevis.

Now on the ridge, most of the way the top was a good few boulders wide, before the steep drop on either side.

And the fun just keeps going!

Here's a brief 360 video from here, showing Grace & Poppy sneakily taking the path just off the top of the ridge.

Last one of the ridge, promise.

Okay, not quite the last one.  I was wearing a GoPro head mount and edited the footage to get this highlight reel.

Stopping for a quick snack after the ridge, before the last climb up a boulder field to the top.

Looking back across the arete.

And at the top of Ben Nevis.  

This shows Loch Lochy and our walk from the previous day. 

Caroline and other others had beaten us by quite a way and were on the way back down, so we just took a few more photos before starting to make our way down.

More stunning views on the way down, this time looking south west.

Our first Munros

After spending our first full day in Scotland on a fairly relaxed birthday trip to Castle Urquhart & strolling to Foyers Falls, we set off on day two with the aim of our first Munros, leaving Grace and Isabelle at the house with the excuse of urgent revision.

Difficulty: 7.0

Walkers: Tim, Caroline, Evie (11), Poppy (8)

9:56, 0.0km 0h00 0m, Start (51)

12:47, 8.4km 2h51 939m, Sron a' Choire Ghairbh (937, Munro)

14:20, 11.6km 4h24 1236m, Meall na Teanga (917, Munro)

17:17, 20.4km 7h21 1345m, End (52)

We drove to the top of Loch Lochy, parking in a small area at Kilfinnan before crossing the bridge on foot.

The first section was along forest tracks alongside the loch, before turning right and beginning to climb up.  Evie brought her latin book and spent much of the walk (and the entire trip) teaching all about the adventures of Caecillius.

Climbing out of the trees we got the first view looking back to Loch Lochy.

Still plenty of walking left as we headed up the valley.  First target was on the right hand side.

Most of the climbing now complete, Caroline looks towards Loch Ness in the distance.  Our house was on the far side.

Top of Sron a' Choire Ghairbh, I think looking south east.  First Munro completed!

Just the small matter of going back down one side and up the other...  dropping around 300m of our hard won gain.

Stunning views from the top of Meall na Teanga, looking down to Loch Lochy.

Evie finally joining us along the ridge.

Swapping positions with Evie, now looking to the south west with Ben Nevis in the centre.

Finally returning down the valley, no chance of a circular walk here.

And our intrepid explorers return back to the car.