5 Munro’s North East of Loch Cluanie
Statistics
Area: Glen Affric to Glen Moriston
Munros: Carn Ghluasaid, Sgurr nan Conbhairean, Sail Chaorainn, A’Chralaig, Mullach Fraoch Choire
Date walked: 22/05/2010
Distancec: 26.2km
Time: 7 hours
Ascent: 1970m
The Route
Introduction
For our last walk of the week up at Loch Cluanie we decided to join two smaller walks and make a longer walk bagging more Munro’s. This walk was to include the 5 Munro’s on the North East side of the Loch. We parked the van at one end of the walk (the start of the walk to Am Bathach) and drove the car to our start point which was 7.5km East along the road at place called Lunde. There is a track here that goes all the way to the first Munro, Carn Ghluasaid.
The Walk
So we set off up the track at 0832. The mountain tops were in the mist but it was fairly dry. The track meanders its way up the hillside around a couple of Coire’s before reaching the summit after just over 4km. Someone has perched a small Chimp on a rock near the bottom of the path. We were not sure if we were meant to lift it and place it on one of the hills so we chose to leave it where it was and arrived at the summit after 1 hour 20 mins.
We then headed pretty much North West around the Coire for about 2.5km to the summit of Sgurr nan Conbhairean. It was grass with some rocks underfoot but it was easy going and we made good progress. We were in the mist at this point so continued on our way for another 1.8km to the summit of Sail Chaorainn with conditions again very nice underfoot. I felt great at this point and it did seem like one of the easier groups of three Munro’s to do.
So we now head back towards Sgurr nan Conbhairean. After just under 1km we started to traverse the hillside under Sgurr nan Conbhairean. There was a bypass path but it soon dissapeared and we soon climbing up the side of the hill on grassy boulder terrain to reach the South West ridge of Sgurr nan Conbhairean. On reflection it may have been better to continue on the path over Sgurr nan Conbhairean but we probably saved about 30m of ascent.
We are now on the usual track down the hillside but after about another 1km we leave the track and head North West across the side of Drochaid an Tuill Easaich heading for the Beallch Choire a Chait. The traverse is nice grass but as we start to descend it becomes boulder terrain and gets a bit steep in places. Once we arrive at the Beallach we have a 400m climb to the summit of A Chralaig. The first 300m is quite steep but we work hard and we are soon climbing the last 100m to the summit. The cairn here is very big. The mist has lifted and the views are quite good. There is a good path here which takes us to our next Munro.
We head North for just under 2km keeping to the path which meanders a bid and then follow the ridge East then North over the excellent ridge to the summit of Mullach Fraoch Choire. Well this is a gem. A nice ridge walk hidden away from the world. Its quite steep in places but the path is good with some minor scrambling to be tackled. We had good weather but I imagine this would be a serious ridge walk in the wind and/or rain. Again there is a huge cairn here and there is also a shelter cairn.
We now head back over the ridge for just under 1km to the top of the coire Odhar. There is a small cairn here which indicates the good path down the coire which eventually leads to the landrover track indicating the last 2.5km walk out of the valley. However the lower parts of the coire and track were a bog as we had experienced yesterday but we just had to grin and bear it. A couple of falls and bent poles later we were marching out on the landrover track.
Another great day with the weather being very kind to us.
