Thursday 1 August 2013

Day 90 - Western Fannaichs

30 July

Off the back of the Fisherfield trip, I found I'd actually become quite tired. My plan for the next three days was to complete two mountain ranges: the Beinn Dearg/Ullapool group, and the Fannaichs.

I began with the western Fannaich's, a loop of low mileage for it's total of five Munros. I'd climbed the western pair before; A' Chailleach and Sgurr Breac. But I'd never done the other three, which nowadays is a novelty, since I've climbed everything except a small group.

After an easy morning, I headed to the Fannaichs around about lunchtime. A' Chailleach felt like a long way in, a feeling I had the first time I did it. The hill encloses it's own lochain, which you traverse above to reach the summit ridge. I saw some lizards and a couple of amazingly tame mountain hares. One stood a mere 10 feet away from me, just watching. He didn't seem too bothered, then dashed away and soon as I thought to get the camera out.

The views from this mountain were stunning: all of the crazy north-west mountains were lined up beneath a sky of piling cumulus. All now climbed, except Slioch. (And Monar, further south.) For now, I was occupied with a group of yellow grassy domes which piled up to the east; the Fannaichs. Sgurr Mor is the most distinctive of the lot: a giant grassy cone, and quite symmetrical in form. The other Fannaich Munros petered away in ever-more gentle waves of grass and scree.

All in all, it was a tired day; but that was to be expected after my big Fisherfield walk the day before. I got over Sgurr Breac, sat in the windbreaker on the saddle below my next hills, and then set off for Sgurr nan Each.

The next three Munros lie in a straight line back to the road, so they hardly took long. I was glad to be over them, and enjoyed looking down long drops to the wild coire of Sgurr nan Clach Geala, Munro #4.

The rain moved in over the last Munro, but it wasn't too heavy, or prolonged. Meall a' Chrasgaidh is a little lump of a Munro, definitely not the most distinct. I motored up this one, called my parents from the top (they were picking me up), then headed down long slopes, back in the direction of the road.

Down at Loch a' Bhraoin, the cloud had piled up into a dark scene, yet the loch itself was lit by a sun of amazing intensity. Up here on the moors between the west and east coasts of Scotland, it doesn't ever really seem to feel like summer. Not when I've been here anyway.

Mum and dad were half way down the access track to Loch a' Bhraoin when I met them. We all walked back to the road together. Although a slow day, I'd done five Munros with minimal fuss and that is always something to be glad of. If anything, the terrain on the Fannaich ridges was easy enough I could have just kept going on and on.

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