Part 3 of the Scotland Feb trip..

After breakfast in the hotel Claire and I drove up the Glen and past the Cluanie Inn. We parked at the same place we had parked for the ascent of Carn Ghluasaid - which was our initial objective; followed by some exploring of the hills beyond it.

The walk up the stalkers path was very hot - with next to no wind again - quite devoid of snow until we got to about 2/3 of the way up. The path then went up a steep snowfield in which steps had been made - however the steps were wide apart. Claire found this not to her liking - so we took a detour (which to be honest was not much easier at one point - although I forgot to mention this til later!!). Luckily, others had been this way and we were able to rejoin the main path. As we'd climbed Carn Ghluasaid on the xmas trip - and encountered driving windblasted snow on the way down, we elected to avoid it and head for the belach between it and Creag a' Chaoruinn. This also allowed a nice lunch stop - as the sun came out and had cleared the mist from both hills. This was to be the pattern all day - every hill we arrived at the summit of had the mist cleared by the sun; whilst the previous hill was shrouded in mist. Needless to say - this made the day truly splendid; helped by the grandeur of the hills.

Another benefit of the clear weather was that it allowed us to pick the best line to the summit - and avoid the cornices which were quite large in places..There were several on the way up to Creag a' Chaoruinn; and lots more on the steep climb to Sgurr nan Conbhairean (the daddy of the day at 1100+m). After another stop on the summit to admire the view and have some food/drink we descended a quite narrow and awkward ridge (MUCH harder than what Claire had wobbled down yesterday), with considerable aplomb and made the short ascent to the top of Drochaid an Tuill Easaich. This took the days ascent to over 1000m, which was pretty good going for the two of us who have not done much recently for a whole host of reasons. It also has a south ridge which is a lovely way to complete the horseshoe. The descent was long and quite steep at times, angling SE towards a river crossing that Claire bounded across like a gazelle....We dropped to the road and I hiked the mile back to the car sans anything except the car-keys - and hike I did having failed to get a lift.....

A quite amazing day - not bad for 40% chance of clear munro's -just wish I hadn't forgotten the camera (left it in the hotel room). Claire had her camera - but not her lead to get the photo's off so will have to wait til we get home.