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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