The southern side of Glen Coe includes some very well-known mountains and can be split into two groups; the ones you can see from the A82 and the ones you can’t. Included in the former group is Buachaille Etive Mor, Buachaille Etive Beag, the Three Sisters and the Ballachulish Horseshoe, and in the latter, three Munros between Glen Creran and Glen Etive (Sgor na h-Ulaidh, Beinn Fhionnlaidh and Beinn Sgulaird). With huge amounts of climbing and walking in summer and winter, this area is also home to a large cairn built for Queen Victoria, or so the story goes. Includes all major peaks above 600m.
Given the poor forecast for the day, I opted for a lower summit avoiding the avalanche prone NNW to SE faces. Starting from Kinlochmore I headed E to Loch Eilde Mor through very deep powder snow in often heavy snowfall. I broke trail the whole day which slowed me considerably (at it`s deepest, the snow drifts were 5 foot high). When I had only reached approx 670m on the SW shoulder approaching the summit, following 5 hours of very tiring walking, I decided to turn back. In hindsight, a better route choice for a day like today would have been a more exposed narrower ridge where less snow would have been likely to have built up (than on the broad, sheltered shoulder that I was attempting to ascend). None the less it was an enjoyable day out in often beautiful surroundings (the cloud cleared occasionally) and with far less wind than on recent days and than was forecast
