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Another great
weekend with Up A Mountain MC in a spectacular part of the country. We
ended up in a comfortable self-catering in Inchnadamph with our own
kitchen, living room, hall and bedrooms and for only £15 a night.
I travelled up with Dave on the Friday as is usual, and spent that
evening having a quiet night in with Colin and Diane in our
accommodation. On Saturday morning, we set out for Conival and Ben
More Assynt. I had already climbed these mountains in August with
Michael Coffield and Martin Forbes, but didn't mind a revisit. The
weather was looking good in the morning and some summit
views this time around would make the repeat journey all worth it.
Conival
We left the cottage and followed the track up towards Conival. We
cut off the track into Gleann Dubh, the enclosed valley that leads to
the bottom of Conival's slopes. This whole section took us far longer
than I remember it to be. When I was here the first time,
it seemed to take no time at all to get onto Conival although this was
perhaps linked to being half asleep on the approach walk. With time, we got
onto the boggy path leading up to the Conival bealach where the views
opened out to the south. The wind was picking up a little too and some
stags were around about. We were making progress and it shouldn't be far
to the summit ridge.
At the top of the corrie, the wind picked up to a point where the waterfall at the top
was being blown back over itself. This reminded me of the very same
occurrence on the Campsies on the 23rd September 2007, although I didn't
stay to watch this time. We headed over
the top of the corrie and followed the path onto Conival's north ridge.
The intriguing thing about this walk was that the ridges of Conival and
Ben More Assynt seemed a lot less 'spiky' than before. I attributed it
to the presence of views and being able to tell the true broadness of the ridge. In
this case it would be fair to say that the ridge is best climbed when
the cloud is down, when all the sharp bits loom ahead out of the mist.
There were a couple of sharper bits on Conival's north ridge, but
otherwise it was all broad.
Colin and I had arrived at the summit first, so we sat in the
windbreaker waiting for the others to arrive. As we sat, we could see
the sunlit showers advancing northwards from the south. By the time all
four of us were together again, those distant showers had developed into
a full blown front, with wind and rain lashing across the summit. The
ridge to Ben More Assynt was going to be rough, and the cloud had moved
in too.
Ben More Assynt and Descent
Here was another example of those anti-climatic ridges. It was enjoyable
to balance across the occasional knife edge, but able to see the terrain
ahead, it was clear there weren't as many sharp bits as I'd remember.
It's funny how my perception of this ridge changed so dramatically, and
although it wasn't quite as I'd remembered, that's not to say I didn't
enjoy it.
We arrived on top of Ben More Assynt in rough weather, so much so I took
a couple of horrendous summit pictures. It was no place to have a camera
out. While we'd
thought about climbing a couple more tops on the way back, the
weather had closed in and dictated to us our return route: the quickest
possible way. The reascent across Conival didn't appeal, so we descended
Ben More Assynt the way we came and then cut off to the ridge with the intention of traversing
the side of Conival. In retrospect, it was a bad idea. The first
sections were toughest to cross and boulder fields covered the side.
Add to that crumbling cliffs and previous
rock fall and you don't have a hands-in-pockets descent. Our intended route skirted the top of Coire a'
Mhadaidh and the 735m lochan. Down by the lochan, the ground underfoot
was easier to negotiate and probably less hazardous. More walking
brought us back to the foot of Conival's north ridge, from where we
could walk down into the corrie and into Gleann Dubh below.
The walk back to Inchnadamph took a long time, (it felt as long in
August, too) but the
evening light was nice to walk beneath. I arrived back at the cottage
with Colin just as darkness fell and Dave and Diane arrived soon after.
Later on, we had a very chilled night in the cottage. Dougie also
arrived and at some point, and we got to sleep on the wrong side of
midnight, Dougie and I planning a 4.30am start in the morning to climb
Glas Bheinn before my planned return to Glasgow.
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