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Sgurr Choinnich Mor
Map I set off from Ware after work on Wednesday evening and drove all the way up to the familiar layby at Moffat. I was using Trisha's car as I needed to keep the mileage down on mine, and there wasn't as much sleeping space in the Focus as I'd had in the Peugeot. Still I managed to get some sleep and then at 5.30 I leapt out of bed with a joyous shout and continued the drive under clear blue skies as far as Tyndrum, where I obtained another of those excellent veggie breakfasts at the Green Welly. I got there just after 8.00 but had to wait for them to open at 8.30. Worth it though. By 9.00 I was on my way again and managed to get to Fort William by 10.00. I drove along Glen Nevis to the car park at the end, booted up and set off along the glen, possibly for the last time, at 10.40.
There was some cloud overhead by now but only a bit, bouncing off the tops, and it was still warm enough to have me dripping with sweat despite only having my base-layer on (and trousers). I followed pretty much the same route as I had done for Binnein Beag, passing the Steall ruins and eventually reaching the point where I needed to turn left up the hillside.
At this point I could see no trace of a path and was looking at the map for reassurance when a bloke who'd been following me turned up. He proved to be German which, going by my previous experience, naturally made me assume he wasn't going to get to the top of anything today. I said hello and he asked, in English barely better than my German, whether this was the path to Ben Nevis. It wasn't, of course. He was miles past Ben Nevis and I told him so. He then said, rather indignantly, that in Germany there were signs to show everyone where to go. He obviously thought the lack of signs here was a damn poor show, but that's your cultural differences for you, eh. He had no map so I showed him on mine where he was and where Ben Nevis was and told him it was possible to get to it via Carn Mor Dearg. After he'd gone I thought maybe I shouldn't have mentioned that in case he tried it and got lost. I was a bit worried then but he'd gone by that time and there was nothing much I could do.
Anyway I carried on then, making my way up the grassy hillside towards Sgurr Choinnich Beag. Not too steep but sweat-inducing all the same. Eventually the long, coarse grass gave way to shorter grass and rocks and at this point, judging I was high enough, I contoured round the hillside to arrive quite nicely at the col between SCB and SCM.
There was a path here and it was straightforward and pretty easy to climb up to the top (13.40). I left my sac propped up against the small cairn and wandered along the ridge a short way to make sure I wasn't missing the blasted summit (as there was some thin cloud obscuring the tops now). Fortunately all was well though, with the next bit being lower and obviously the end of the massif. I returned to the summit and sat down for a bite to eat. While I was there 4 Welsh chaps turned up from the other direction, having just done the Grey Corries. They'd started at 6.00! They were all fellow munro-baggers but reckoned they were still about 10 years from finishing. We had a chat about the Skye Munros and I succeeded in making them even more worried about the InPin than they had been before. One of them told me he'd been really scared doing Sgurr nan Gillean (they'd done it East to West and having got to the top had been reluctant to return the way they'd come so had carried on down the other side) We took each other's photographs and they turned back while I set off down the way I'd come. I returned to the col and continued up over SCB then back down over pathless, grassy tracts until I reached the valley bottom and the path which ran along it.
I returned to the car park, in company, for the last mile or so, with a chap from Stirling who'd just done the Aonachs. Back at the car 16.40 so the whole trip had taken 6 hours exactly. Hoping to re-do Braeriach the next day I drove to Kingussie and tried the B&B we'd stayed at earlier in the year. It was full, unfortunately. The proprietor kindly rang round for me but there were no vacancies anywhere, apparently due to an untimely invasion of McPhersons who had descended on the area for some sort of clan gathering. Struggling to understand his broad highland dialect I got him to write the name down for me. 'Ah, right,' I said, 'but you've made a mistake. There's no 'F' in McPherson.' 'Aye, well that's wha ye're wrong, laddie,' he replied, 'they's thoosands o' effin McPhersons...' (Oh, alright I made that last bit up... you would too if you'd been deprived of your bed by a McP) I carried on to Aviemore and got fixed up at the Aviemore Bunkhouse (£14), sharing a room with a chap called Graham who was doing a continuous, cycle-based round of the Munros. He had 40 left to do and expected to finish in 2 weeks time. His blog can be found at www.blogger.com, called 'Grahams's Munro Walk' I had a meal at the pub next door - veg pasta gratin (£6.50) washed down by a couple of Guinnesses (£2.90 each). POSTSCRIPT Ten years after this trip I received the following email: Hello Alan, My name is Iwan, I live in West Wales, and by chance this morning I realised that I met you 10 years ago, I'm one of the "4 Welsh chaps" you mention in your account of Sgurr Choinnich Mor on 3rd August 2006. I attach the photo of us on the summit, I'm the one in the centre, my friend Ian is on the left. Good to see that the photo one of us took of you made it onto your website. I was just sorting photos on an USB stick and I happened to click on our Fort William trip of summer 2006 when suddenly I saw this photo and it struck me that this was Alan of Alan's Munro Diary! I was fortunate to discover your website back in 2013 when I was planning my first solo trip to Scotland. Unfortunately the 3 other chaps have given up on the Munros, but I'm still on the case. To tackle the Munros solo for the first time felt a bit daunting at first but I found your reports very useful and interesting. Congratulations on completing your challenge in 2008. I still have 57 Munros to go, some of them long epic treks, but I am determined to persevere. I hope that all is well with you, and if you get the chance it would be good to hear from you. Best wishes, Iwan It was really nice to hear from Iwan after all this time. Here is the photo he sent me:
The other two members of the group were Dai and Alan - hi, lads, best wishes to you all. Thanks for the photo and getting in touch, Iwan, and here's wishing you a safe and successful conclusion to your Munro campaign. Good luck. | ||||||
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