Western Fannich hills....

Mum sent me a text when we got back from the last trip...saying about how one forgets the scale of these hills....today brought that point home to me.

Nowhere else in the UK would 10 miles and 3850 feet of ascent be considered a relatively short day..I wanted to start with a quite short day and also the forecast for tomorrow (Fri) was much better so I wanted to be fresh to do a sizeable contribution tomorrow..also; these hills were outstanding on the Munro's list!!

Anyhow; I set off nice and promptly after another breakfast from Ian; only to realise about half-way there I had forgotten my camera...oops...so; take two and I was parking up at the end of Loch a' Bhraoin - this time armed with midgy face net and chicken noodle smelling repellent!

Don't know if I mentioned this last time - Claire brought some repellent in Gairloch - it works but it smells like weak chicken noodle soup; something we both noticed on our stroll in from Poolewe on that trip...anyway...it works which is good.

Midge net soon off and I was soon squelching through the path on the way up the slopes of Toman Coinich; which is the top in between the two hills I was doing today. The path picked quite a clever up through some rocky outcrops which deposited me (very sweatily as it was completely still) on the plateau of Drum Reidh. Once on this plateau the angle eases off massively and walking becomes underfoot as opposed to under ankle. There is also a small path up here that I followed and eventually made my way to the col between Toman Coinich and A' Chailleach (which is the mountain in this picture). I
left my sack on the col and panted up A'Chailleach, an ascent of only 400' or so. I met two Scottish blokes near the top who said that they had disturbed an eagle which had flown off - and the midges. I

can't comment on the first - can on the second so it was a quick run down and back to the sack. The ascent of Toman Coinich was, frankly, not much less than that of the mountain. It was soon done and after a country slice or two I set off for the last climb of the day - Sgurr Breac. This was longer, although only around 500'. My timing was excellent as I arrived on top at lunchtime - so I did. The mizzle began as well and continued all the way down - except for a half hour burst of quite steady rain - enough to get me into overtrousers anyway. The walk back down the stalkers path that Claire and I had used on our Sgurr nan Each/Sgurr nan Clach Geala walk seemed longer than I remembered. I had felt full of beans on top of Sgurr Breac and had half considered throwing in another 2000' of climbing and 2 more mountains - luckily I did not as I felt a bit more tired than I expected on the descent. It was quite hard to keep a rhythm up as the path was very wet and quite slippery....Having said all that the round took me under 5 1/2 hrs which is pretty good....and the forecast for tomorrow is quite encouraging as well!!

https://picasaweb.google.com/102361192587557786751/WesternFannichHills

pix here....