Monadhliath Mountains means "grey mountains". Running in a northeast to southwest direction, the mountains lie on the western side of Strathspey, to the west of the Cairngorms and to the south east of Loch Ness. The mountains are within the Highland council area, and the south and east fringes are within the Cairngorms National Park. The high point of the range is Càrn Dearg, at 945 m/3100ft, located 24 km south of Inverness.
ROUTE: A variation on the SMC Munros Guidebook route, leading my wife Marion. Followed the path up Glen Banchor and the Allt an t-Seilich and across the footbridge and pass to Gleann Ballach. I was hoping to climb the snowslopes on the East face of Carn Dearg or possibly find an easy gully leading to the summit ridge, so tried to cross the Allt Ballach at around NH648020. This proved extremely difficult as the stream was in spate, so headed further upstream. After a few further abortive attempts resulting in wet feet, eventually found a solid-enough snow bridge at around NH643025 , and made an ascending traverse towards the steep eastern slopes. The thawing snow and heavy rain suggested cornice collapse would be very possible, so diverted from the direct route to join the NE ridge at around 880m. From there we followed the plateau edge to the summit cairn. Our return followed the standard route.
