Training Weekend 19/20th February

DAY 1: On Saturday, my friend Arlene and I took a ferry over to Mull to walk the horseshoe around the corbett Dun da Ghaoithe, from Craignure. Our day totalled 17.7km (11 miles) and 942m ascent. We set off from the ferry port at Craignure at about 11:15am (the ferry was running late). We walked briefly along the road before taking the turning opposite Torosay Castle towards the mast at Maol nan Uan. Blessed with horrendous visibility (as always), Arlene and I stumbled across the first mast without seeing it advance. In the snow we nearly missed the fork in the track to the higher mast at 545m. From here we experienced total white-out conditions and had to walk on a bearing along the ridge towards Mainnir nam Fiadh. Suddenly we remembered that compasses are not always reliable on Mull due to the magnetic volcanic rock! This made us rather uneasy (given that we could hardly tell up from down), so we hugged the northern edge of the broad ridge which funnelled us up to the trig point on Mainnir nam Fiadh (754m). At 640m we donned our crampons. The cairn on the summit is HUGE and in the low visibility we didn't know what it was until we were practically standing on it! Handrailing the ridge edge on our right (at a bit of a distance due to cornices), we made our way to the summit of our objective for the day, Dun da Ghaoithe (766m). At times we could see literally nothing but our feet! This summit had another massive cairn and after a quick photo we headed off on a bearing northward, for the Ben Chreagach ridge (which runs NE). 


Summit of Dun da Ghaoithe, Mull

At about 660m we experienced a momentary clearing and the striking ridge toward Ben Thunicaraidh appeared out of the gloom. Our planned descent route still in mist, we struck out for this new objective and stomped along the ridge to the the summit at 648m.

Heading for the ridge towards Ben Thunicaraidh
in a brief thinning of the cloud

From here we skirted the western slopes of Beinn Mheadhon and headed down through scree and knolls towards the river (Allt Achadh na Moine).  Due to the conditions, the day had been quite slow going. By now we were aware that we were likely to miss our 5pm ferry home (the last one!!). We scurried down the river bank, crossing the water hurriedly and filling out boots. Finally we located the track down to the road at Scallastle Bay. At 4:45pm, the only way we were going to make our ferry was if we could hitch a lift. With out thumbs out we stormed off in the direction of Craigniure. At 5:20pm we still didn't have a lift and were convinvced the game was over. Spotting a cave we joked about this being our probable resting place for the night! At that moment we were lucky enough to score a lift from two very helpful ladies (thank you!) Arriving at Craignure at about 5:30pm we were delighted to find that the final and now heavily delayed ferry still had not left (or even arrived!!) Happily we caught the ferry home at 6:15pm for pizza and beer (or in my case, a cider as usual!) Despite the lack of a view, saturday was excellent navigation-skills practice and well worth the effort.

DAY 2: On Sunday we had ambitious hope to do a winter traverse of the Ballachulish Horseshoe. Leaving the car at 8:15am we followed the track from Ballaschullish school towards the East-North-East ridge of Sgorr Bhan.


The East-North-East ridge of Sgorr Bhan is
the one on the left of the facing corie

However, after several rocky steps (and at about 700m) we felt it was too windy to continue enjoyably. The ridge is a 1* grade scramble in summer but it was obviously in winter condition and taking the full brunt of the wind on this occasion, which was much stronger than forecast. With the summit ridge in cloud and strong gusts, we descended with our tails between our legs, thinking it to be less that ideal conditions for such a classic ridge walk (we would save it for a better day!) Ironically, by the time we reached the village, the weather was clearing and the cloud level lifting!

We popped home for tea and lightened our bags, before nipping up the Pap of Glencoe (Sgorr na Ciche) at 742m. We were surprised by how busy it was up there (we saw about 16 people)! With dark clouds rushing through a clearing sky we had fleeting glimpes of the view from the summit before heading down. We were back at the car for 3:15pm.

Overall on Sunday we walked a total of only 10.7km (6.7 miles) but had climbed 1492m!

View of Loch Linnhe from the lower slopes of Sgorr na Ciche