Canisp...

is one of the mammoths we have acquired by buying lots of Mammut gear (they give you lovely little stuffed mammoths!!) - it is also a lovely mountain in the NW of Scotland...

Claire and I had been driving back down towards Ullapool from a couple of days exploring the far NW - we had hoped to get some climbing in at Sandwood Bay, however the weather wasn't perfect for this. So we were taking in the sights and sounds instead. 

This is the view of the mountain from the car-park at the head of Loch Awe - to the north of Ullapool. Canisp happens to be a Corbett; more to the point it is one of the (many) lovely mountains of Sutherland. Sutherland is a place which actually defies the tradition of doing the Munro's for getting the best hills - the majority of the best hills here aren't Munro's.

Another big advantage of Canisp is that it's a relatively short day. Claire and I had both been working far too much and walking/keeping fit not enough and so a nice shortish day without too much ascent (by Scottish standards) would be good.

The cloud was down as we set off up the hill. It's only a 6km walk to the summit from the road and we actually made reasonable time. The top is a little stony and we had to pick our line ok but the walk was very nice. Like a lot of the Corbetts it doesn't have a massive path up it (unlike most of the Munro's which do); this is good as it makes one think on the hill about things such as choice of line etc.

After lunch on top the obvious decision was for a descent to the road and head off to Ullapool, before this happened...

The picture above is of Suilven from the shoulder of Canisp (Suilven not even being a Corbett but being one of the finest hills in Scotland full stop). It was taken as the cloud lifted for a few minutes on the descent and we got clear views. Given the remoteness of Sutherland the views were magnificent, not the row and row of amazing hills one might get around Ullapool but the lovely wastes of Sutherland.
Braebeg was seen across the road - giving me immediate thoughts of
a long backpacking circuit involving Ben More Assynt and Conival.
As we got further down and could see out West, Cul Mor (pictured) was seen and glimpses of Stac Pollaidh as well.
We took a different path on the way back - which came and went from time to time; and by the time we got back to Suilvan (as opposed to Suilven :-) ) the views were a little hazy - as can be seen from the top picture which was taken just as we were about to leave....

Driving back to Ullapool we drove through a 20 min absolute cloudburst - so lucky to have avoided that and got a lovely walk in.