The last of Glen Affric ...

Another weather window and another few hills for my Dad.

With the SYHA hostel at Alltbeithe due to close for the winter on September 14th and the weather lookin good but not great, my Dad and myself took the opportunity to climb his two remaining Glen Affric hills. Half day from work and we headed up the A82 towards the Fort before turning east and along Loch Ness - two reasons ...driving the A9 is too much like Russian Roulette for my liking and the views through the Coe are nice.

The car park was once again midge hell and we took no time in getting the bikes sorted and onto the track to the south of Loch Affric. Just past the first gate I could see my Dad was less than happy - in short his pannier was too heavy and rubbing against the wheel. The contents were emptied to see what he didn't need - I commented that was actually the entire contents ...he mumbled something under his breath and headed back to the car with the offending pannier ! (worth noting at the end of the trip he also commented that he did in fact not actually require anything that had been returned to the car).

The track appeared rougher than previous memories from the Highland Cross but maybe we are just softer ...who knows.

Arrived at the hostel and chatted to a nice bunch of folks from all over the world (well ...England, France, Canada and Fife) whilst cooking dinner (my Dad had brought in oven chips and sausage rolls !?!). Fairly early into the sleeping bags ...I relaxed with some tunes on the ipod. Up equally fairly early and started up the hill.

As always, the first hour was a bit on the sore side but the great track helped us make good time. Over the wee 941m and 970m tops and sadly into the cloud to arrive at the cairn for Sgurr nan Ceathreamhan. The cloud and a couple of ridges made a bit of compass work necessary in order to avoid any additional descent / reascent and very quickly we dropped out of the cloud (always nice to see that you are in the right place). The ridge heading north to our second summit was simply great with awesome views to the Mullardoch hills. Once on Mullach na Dheiragan, I nipped out to the subsidiary top missed on my last visit.

For the return we cut the corner a bit by dropping down into the coire and traversing onto the bealach - reckon it saved about one hour on the day. Back at the hostel we picked up the bikes and sadly headed west back to the car ...it would have been nice to have been able to stay another night.