Glen Affric – Part 2 – Day 4

After returning knackered from Knoydart and the weather not looking great I was contemplating going home. But we all expressed a wish to try and walk again rather than return later in the year for a weekend. Later that day the weather forecast improved so we sat down and decided that we would go for it, and that finishing the Glen Affric Munro’s would be our priority.

Cairn Eighe from Mam Sodhail

The summit of Cairn Eighe

So on Saturday we were up at 5.00am and on the road by half past, it made a difference and we made Inverness in 1hr 40m. It took a further hour to get to the Glen Affric car park but we were well motivated and were on the move straight away. 

The summit of Bheinn Fhionnlaidh

Bheinn Fhionnlaidh

This was going to be another long day we worked our way up Gleann nam Fiadh climbing steeply to the col and over the three tops to the Munro of Carn Eighe, the pinnacled ridge was brilliant and easy walking. When we arrived at the summit cairn it had taken us 4h 15minutes.

The summit of Mam Sodhail and our ninth hill in a week

Mam Sodhail from the summit of Cairn Eighe

The clouds were high and there was a good wind blowing but it didn’t hinder us. Beinn Fhionnlaidh didn’t look too far away and we were soon down at the col and at the cairn within an hour. On the return we picked up our ruck sacks were we had left them and traversed across eastern flanks of Carn Eighe before the final push up Mam Sodhail which was relatively easy. That left us with a long walk back to the car. We arrived in the car park at 6.20pm unfortunately it started raining at 6.15pm!

So that is now twelve Munro’s climbed this year leaving just four hills left to climb which will take two walking days. One is a 14-16 hour marathon in the Fisherfields and the other is CMD and Ben Nevis!

I am so looking forward to writing about the birds that I have seen, so please excuse my indulgence, I am fully aware that most of the recent reports have a been about hills and not birds!