South Shiel Ridge...

Just got back from an excellent weekend hillwalking in Glen Shiel with the EUHWC.  The weather on Saturday was superb, and a group of us decided to take advantage of the weather and tackle the long traverse of the seven Munros on the South Glen Shiel Ridge.  What follows are my pics and trip report...

The Morning View...
My friends and I stayed at the Ratagan Youth Hostel.  This was the view that I had while drinking coffee and getting ready to head into the hills...

The South Glen Shiel Ridge, Saturday 5 March 2011:


The route begins at the parking lot across the road from the Cluanie Inn.  From there cross the road and head south along a well kept land-rover track towards the Cluanie Lodge.

Continue past the turn-off to the lodge along the land-rover track about a mile or so until you reach stream and a fence crossing.  At this point you can either continue along the land-rover track around behind the ridge and follow a well marked path to the top of Creag a'Mhaim (the first of the seven Munros), or you can cross the fence and head off-road along a much steeper (but more direct route) to the top.  I chose the steeper more direct route.  Here is a shot from about half-way up...

Here is another one of the group crossing the upper "snow field" just below the summit.  We were carrying ice axes and crampons, but we encountered very little snow.  I pulled the ice axe out a few times, but never had to bother with the crampons...

The view of the north Glen Shiel Ridge from the top of Creag a'Mhaim...

After ascending Creag a'Mhaim and enjoying the view, we moved on towards the second Munro, Druim Shionnach.  Along the way I ran into my brocken-spectre and found myself in a full on cloud inversion...

This photo from the summit of Druim Shionnach of Ben Nevis in full cloud inversion is one of my all-time favourites.  Although it doesn't look it from the photo, the summit of Ben Nevis is roughly 400 meters higher than I was at the time the photo was taken...

From the summit of Druim Shionnach, we descended to a bealach before heading up towards the third Munro called Aonach air-Chrith.  At 1021 m, Aonach air-Chrith was the highest of the seven Munros I climbed on Saturday.  Here is a nice photo of our approach...

...and here is the view from the summit (where I ate my lunch)...

After a nice break on the summit of Aonach air-Chrith we descended to another bealach before ascending the fourth Munro, Maol chinn-Dearg. Here is the group on the approach.  The actual summit is the flat bit in the middle of the photo above the snow.

We didn't linger long on the summit, and instead pressed on towards the fifth Munro, Sgurr an Doire Leathain. Here is the group about mid-way between Maol chinn-Dearg and Sgurr an Doire Leathain.  We are a bit hard to pick out in the photo...but if you look closely you will see a group of people moving along the path about midway up the grassy slope.  Follow the ridge line up to the left and then back around to the right a bit and you will find the summit of Sgurr an Doire Leathain...

The sixth Munro, Sgurr an Lochain, is very close to the summit of the Sgurr an Doire Leathain and requires only a descent and re-ascent of about 100 m.  If any of the seven Munros of the South Shiel Ridge will ever get down-graded, I suspect this would be the one...

Last but not least, I include a nice shot of the approach to the last Munro, Creag nam Damh...

What a day!  Hope you enjoyed the photos.  In total, we climbed seven Munros over 14 miles in 10 hours with roughly 2000  meters (6500 ft.) of ascent.  Definitely one of my great days out in the hills...if only a certain someone and our Schnauzer had been able to come along it would have been perfect.