Despite the intents of a prompter-than-yesterday start, even the first people up only staggered to the kitchen at nine. However, the bell was rung to summon the slumberers, and soon a mass of people were digging into porridge and toast etc., some looking rather dazed, perhaps by the activities of the night before.
Earnest discussions were held on the topic of the days walk, given that Malcolm had to be at Spean Bridge at the end of the afternoon. A crew of four was drawn together to attempt Sgurt a’Bhealaich Dheig and Sgurr an Fhurail. We parked David’s car at a convenient lay-by and came across our first conceptual difficulty a rather tall deer fence which included barbed wire. This was over come by trotting along the road a few yards, where a gate was discovered. The initial ascent was rather boggy, but the large number of deer scampering on the fellside in the distance added some interest. We were soon above the snowline, and the distinctly draughty conditions gave a hint of what was to come. The snow was hard, but easy to walk on (is that a pun?), and we made steady progress up the ridge. Views opened up of the loch and the fells around, including all the Five Sisters clearly in view. We could also see David’s car – in fact we rarely lost sight of it.
At the col it was extremely draughty, and we stopped to add several layers of clothing and get our axes out. As we went on the wind gusted then dropped, but the views were consistently good. Suddenly David announced “that’s it folks”, and the summit cairn came in to sight. This was one of the less windy moments. However, the final few yards involved a rather interesting knife-edge ridge, with precipitous drops either side. After a few guick summit photos, we dashed back across the ridge while it was still calm, and found a nice rock to shelter behind for lunch. Mark and I celebrated our first Munro, but soon Malcolm was urging us on.
We raced down to the col and headed up the next mountain in deep, soft snow. This included two peaks; the smaller is mentioned above and the larger (ie the Munro) has another unpronounceable name that isn’t on the map. The first had some interesting scrambly bits which were partially avoided due to the exposure in the high wind. We observed some nice cornices and the sun came out. The descent from the first summit was rather alarming, since it was – shaped, but it was achieved without incident. On the final peak we saw some nice spindrift effects:
We attempted to throw bits of snow into the wind and had them blown back over us. The spindrift was rather uncomfortable to walk in, and also wet in the hot sun. We also found some cavernous holes beneath the snow by putting our feet down them.
To accelerate our descent we contoured round a third lumpy bit of the mountain, and then found some nice snow chutes to glissade down. Most of us used our backsides, which ended up rather damp, but Mark went shooting past head first. The fun ended in a stream buried in the snow.
We were back at the car a full twenty minutes before schedule. We sped off to Spean Bridge and had time for tea and half-price, past-it biscuits. The shop sold lots of postcards of Ben Nevis and a few of other places. We brought a few and headed back.
Tim.