
2 days in Kintail. Day 1: we parked the car at cluanie inn. We had snow cover down to the glen and due to lots of non wind effected snow fall we took snowshoes and axe and crampons on this journey. Heavy Bags! We climbed the SE side of Am Bathach, snowshoeing due to thigh deep snow from about 600m onwards. In Bealach a Choinich we observed multiple sluff avalanches be triggered by falling snow of small cliffs. All triggered sluffs were in a steepening convexity at 730m. We also had the prescence of sun at the convexity only. Due to this we decided to use the wind scoured SW spur to climb up to ciste dubh. The west face of Ciste dubh had multiple avalanches, mostly larger sluff runs, but one slide was clearly cornice breakage. We stayed on the rocky ridge and sub 10* ground to the summit. We decided for a descent of the NW side which should have been the scoured side. We stayed in Camban bothy for the night.
Day 2: A snowshoe walk in to the west until just before the Allt Grannda waterfalls. Dubious river crossing and we began a deep snow ascent on the N ridge of Meall a Charra. By 1300 despite a 0800 start we topped out on Saileag. Weather was deteriorating and we had strong winds, sections of whiteout. From saileag we followed the "brothers ridge" to the east. Wind direction was changing and snow precip was increasing. Snow drifts were thigh deep. We made it Sgurr a bhealaich dheirg, where the last meters to the cairn were a tad spicy with big bags. It was nearly dark, and the wind was howling so we decided to shorten the trip by descending back to the road via the southern ridge to the SE of the summit. Rain at glen level.
Area :
Glen Affric and Kintail
South of Loch Mullardoch you will find the Glen Affric and Kintail area whose southern boundary is the A87 road to Inverness. The Five Sisters of Kintail, Beinn Fhada, Sgurr nan Ceathreamhnan and Carn Eighe are just some of the impressive peaks in this area, and all have their own unique selling points such as remoteness, size, steepness or height. As a result, peaks in the list are all over 900m.