Glen Feshie hills..

The Thursday morning dawned ok - it had rained heavily overnight but had stopped and the cloud was quite light on the hills. The forecast was for it to improve as the day went on as well; so Claire and I drove Suilvan round to Achlean farm and parked up. The stalkers path mentioned in the books as the way to approach these hills was a delight - it did mean we'd have about a 4km road walk at the end of the day; however a strong southerly wind precluded us using the bikes to bike up and walk back south (our original idea). This way, the wind was at our backs.

The stalkers path as superb, well drained and well graded, so we could maintain a slow but steady plod up the path towards the summit of Carn Ban Mor. This area is known for being a navigational nightmare in thick mist and it's easy to see why. Visibility was not perfect (far from it with it being limited to around 100 yards); however there was a cairn at the junction of the four paths and it enabled us to find the wind-shelter on the summit of Carn Ban Mor easily [ a word of note; the cairn is not the biggest and may well get buried in the winter snows].

Lunch was taken on top and, with no improvement in the weather, the decision was made to retreat to the van. We'd got about 100m down when suddenly the clouds started to lift and the sun began to make an appearence - so we climbed back up and continued with the traverse as planned. 5 minutes later and we'd have been too far down to re-ascend - truly a stolen day.

This picture is the next stage of our route with Claire starting the ascent of Sgor Gaoith, one of two Munro summits on the plateau, the other being at the far end which we weren't visiting today.

                                                                                                                     

This was a view looking back - showing the desolation of the Moine Mhor (or Great Moss). Using the path that we followed, you can walk across to Braeriach and to the hills of Monadh Mhor and Beinn Bhrotain. Irvine Butterfield, author of the 'High Mountains of Britain and Ireland' (pretty much the bible for me in my Munro bagging) describes this as the most "psychologically intimidating walk in Britain" and one can see why.

Sgor Gaoith had marvellous views into the great corries of Braeriach, and also marked the high point of the day's round. From there, it was a short hop onto Sgoran Dubh Mhor and onto Geal Charn, the last top of the day at 920m. From there, a steep descent took us to another lovely path, with lovely trees and heather to look at - which took us back to the road.

The 4km on the road was not good for my knees, however the lamb chops at the van did make more than amends for this - as did the sunset that night. With less wind, we were back in the high car-park - no midges!!!! - and this was our reward. A great end to a stolen day.