Monday 18 May 2015

Scotland 2015. Day 11, An Awsome Day in the Affric Hills.

A fantastic day in the mountains today despite predictions of snow, thunder and lightning.  In fact it was such a bad forecast that we abandoned thoughts of wild camping and decided to do day walks.  As we only had 10 miles and 2 munros planned we had a fairly relaxed start. We parked by the Chisholme  Bridge in Glen Affric and were walking at 9.30.  We immediately left Glen Affric and headed up into Glean nam Fiadh by a fabulous crystal tumbling river.  After a couple of miles we left the path and climbed directly up very steep grass slopes to our first Munro of Toll Creagach.  This is a big rounded summit with excellent views across Loch Mullardoch to the Munros beyond and along the ridge to our second summit of the day: Tom a’ Choinich.  There was copious fresh snow, knee deep in places, and the snow line could be drawn with a pencil along the 700m contour line.  After a quick coffee and cereal bar we carried on along the broad ridge and down to the Bealach Toll Easa.  From here the route continued up a narrow, fiercely steep ridge to the summit; this was hands on and about a grade 1 scramble.  There was very much an alpine feel to it.  After lunch at the trig point we revelled in the awesome views back to our first top, across Loch Mullardoch and further along the ridge to the giants of Carn Eige and Mam Sodhail.  The descent route took us down the impressive south-east ridge complete with a huge cornice.  We returned to the valley by romping down an exhilarating snow slope.  The day was completed by returning to the car along the river.

An amazing day.

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