[Trip Index] [Munro Index] [Home] 17th May 2007   Moruisg Sgurr nan Ceannaichean Map These two hills proved to be a nice, easy jaunt which was rather a relief after the exertions of the preceding two outings. I set off at 8.35 and was back at the car by 1.42. Starting from the car park, a layby on the A890 just to the west of Loch Sgamhain, I crossed the river by the footbridge and then climbed a fence to get over the railway track. There was a narrow passage going underneath it but it looked boggy and I preferred the overhead route. The start point The weather was a bit cloudy today and some discrete clumps of low-level cloud were drifting along the glen and occasionally obscuring the tops. At the start I couldn't actually see the top of Moruisg and there was little trace of a path but the way was simple enough. Just head about 130 degrees from north, up the grassy hillside. The going was a bit boggy and after about the 450 metre level it became quite steep. Behind me I saw another car pull into the car park and shortly afterwards two figures set off after me, about 25 minutes behind. The steep hillside eventually levelled off onto a long, broad, rounded plateau with a cairn at each end. I walked past the large cairn at the northern 'top' and continued over the fairly level heights to the cairn at the southern end which marks the true summit (10.40). Visibility was ok mostly but with a few patchy bits of cloud passing below me and occasionally around me. The north 'top' cairn with the south cairn just visible behind and to the right The southern cairn (ie summit) with the north cairn just visible behind and to the right Moruisg summit As I sat at the summit eating my crackers and cheese the 2 other walkers turned up and who should it be but the couple I'd met on Lurg Mhor two days previously. We had a chat and compared experiences of that trip then they set off ahead of me. I waited 5 minutes and then started towards Sgurr nan Ceannaichean, the lowest of all the Munros (at least currently). It was a nice easy walk to the col between the two mountains but very suddenly cloud rolled in and surrounded me and I could no longer see any reference points. It's quite disconcerting for one minute you're happily walking towards your destination with everything plainly visible, not really thinking about it, and then suddenly you're adrift with all that certainty gone. The path had naturally chosen that same moment to disappear and so it was out with the map and compass again. Fortunately a few minutes later the scene cleared again - the Sgurr nan Ceannaichean summit remained in cloud but the way to it was now clear enough. Sgurr nan Ceannaichean Down to the col, very easy, then a rocky path led up to the summit which was marked by two cairns: one well-built, marking nothing very much and another, scruffier one, a hundred yards further on and some metres higher, marking the actual top. The couple were there and the girl agreed to do her best to make me look noble in the summit shot I asked her to take. The summit cairn noble? They set off back down and disappeared into the murk and 5 minutes later I followed them. Almost immediately I hit uncertainty - the way I felt I should go didn't correspond with the compass so I hunted around and finally settled on a more satisfactory route. Soon after that I picked up signs of a path, carried on down to where the incline eased off a bit then took the compass's advice again to head for the northern spur - my route back. Along this I went and on glancing back was surprised to see the couple about 1/4 mile behind me - they must have taken the wrong turn at the top for me to have got ahead of them. A bit further down I came out of the cloud and was able to make my way down into the glen of the Alltan na Feola where I picked up the stalkers' path. This led easily down into Glen Carron and looped round to the right to take me all the way back to the car. Since I left a small herd of cows had appeared and, just to be awkward, were clustering round the gate I had to go through. Several of them had calves and I was a bit wary of alarming them so I spoke softly and, as I hoped, unthreateningly and managed to get past them with no trouble. The cows The couple were coming down the track about half a mile away as I was taking my boots off but I left before they got back. They had told me they were going to do the Sgurr Choinnich trio the next day. Overall grassy, a bit cloudy, cool and easy.