Day 6: 28/05/2015 Sgor Gaoith (Munro)
The day started poorly with a completely moth-free moth trap, the temperature having been 7 degC when I set it and dropped to 4 degC overnight - so I went back to bed for another hour's sleep.
Our second Munro of the trip started in Glen Feshie. We used to come here fairly regularly to climb Carn Ban Mor from Achlean, to look for Ptarmigan, before we realised that it was more usual than not to find Ptarmigan when climbing any Munro. This walk ascended on a good path for most of the way to ~800m. Here a rocky shoulder ascends fairly steeply to the summit plateau, we were in cloud and the path fizzled out. There was also much evidence of recently fallen snow and large patches of snow that had remained from the winter. Indeed, as we were ascending we were treated to a snow shower. Pressing on we came to a track that followed the ridge line, the cloud lifted for a while and we were granted some splendid views. From here to the summit was straightforward with no great push up to the top. Unfortunately the cloud had returned so we were deprived of views of the precipitous drop down the crags to Loch Einich. We had decided to follow the Walk Highlands circuit from here and return via the Geal-charn ridge and down a steep pathless heather slope to rejoin our ascent route. As we couldn't see anything much to start with, we cautiously followed the edge of the crags until we reached a saddle. We were just considering the wisdom of continuing when the cloud lifted and we we found we were exactly where we thought we were (always a bit of a surprise) and the onward route was clear before us, though pathless through a moderate covering of snow. The wind picked up a bit and then gave us a 10 minute blasting of hail, which we tackled by adopting a crab-like sideways walking action to keep the hail on our backs. On the route down we had several spells of sunshine and it was generally much more pleasant. Little wildlife was seen - but we did get a pair of Ptarmigan!
Our second Munro of the trip started in Glen Feshie. We used to come here fairly regularly to climb Carn Ban Mor from Achlean, to look for Ptarmigan, before we realised that it was more usual than not to find Ptarmigan when climbing any Munro. This walk ascended on a good path for most of the way to ~800m. Here a rocky shoulder ascends fairly steeply to the summit plateau, we were in cloud and the path fizzled out. There was also much evidence of recently fallen snow and large patches of snow that had remained from the winter. Indeed, as we were ascending we were treated to a snow shower. Pressing on we came to a track that followed the ridge line, the cloud lifted for a while and we were granted some splendid views. From here to the summit was straightforward with no great push up to the top. Unfortunately the cloud had returned so we were deprived of views of the precipitous drop down the crags to Loch Einich. We had decided to follow the Walk Highlands circuit from here and return via the Geal-charn ridge and down a steep pathless heather slope to rejoin our ascent route. As we couldn't see anything much to start with, we cautiously followed the edge of the crags until we reached a saddle. We were just considering the wisdom of continuing when the cloud lifted and we we found we were exactly where we thought we were (always a bit of a surprise) and the onward route was clear before us, though pathless through a moderate covering of snow. The wind picked up a bit and then gave us a 10 minute blasting of hail, which we tackled by adopting a crab-like sideways walking action to keep the hail on our backs. On the route down we had several spells of sunshine and it was generally much more pleasant. Little wildlife was seen - but we did get a pair of Ptarmigan!
Sgor Gaoith: Distance: 14km, Ascent: 913m, Summit altitude: 1118m (Geal-charn: Summit altitude 920m)