A variation of the “Brothers” of Kintail, just the three Munros. I was with Marion leading her friends Zoe and Alison, not forgetting Zoe’s whippet Bonnie, who were up in Kintail for a few days in their camper van, with the specific request to do the Five Sisters walk. As the weather forecast was best for the Wednesday, I decided to target the Sisters for then, and chose this as a suitable objective for the first outing. It would also give me a chance to see how Alison got on, as I’d not walked with her before and I knew she had only a few Munros under her belt.
Leaving the camper at the Bealach an Lapain car park, we drove up the glen to start from the big pull-off west of the Cluanie Inn, at the foot of Coire Cadha. We had discussed tactics for the a to b walk the previous evening, so it was with an air of confidence that I casually asked after 30 minutes “ just checking you have your keys in a zipped pocket, Alison?” I took full responsibility for this schoolboy error when the surprise answer was “I left them in your car”, promising to walk or jog back up the glen at the end!
The rest of the walk was a pleasure: very little wind, excellent visibility from the ridge and summits, with just enough cloud cover to keep the temperature comfortable. At the Bealach an Lapain, I shared out some superfluous gear and food from my sack and beetled off downhill en route to my car. To my delight one of the members of a group we had crossed paths with on the ridge and had heard our tale of woe, was waiting for me in the car park to give me a lift to my car! The brotherhood of hill walkers on the Brothers of Kintail!
Total distance 9.1km, Elevation gain 1209m, Elapsed time 6 hrs 14 mins.
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.
