Sgurr a’Mhaoraich
This Munro was one of the hills which figured in my mental list as a more or less unknown entity. I had climbed the South Glen Shiel ridge, I had climbed Gleouraich but I had no memory of any views of Sgurr a’Mhaoraich. This could of course be due to bad weather on the hills mentioned but who knows why my mind had never registered this hill. Nonetheless I had always been looking forward to finally bagging Sgurr a’Mhaoraich because the hill has big shoulders and spacious ridges offering good access and possibly great views of Knoydart and its other neighbours. Now that we wanted to climb it on a semi rest day (Hey, what’s a four hour hike for a real Munrobagger!) the weather was again so-so.
We parked our car in the little layby right after the bridge over the northern finger of Loch Quoich. We vigorously climbed the very nice stalker’s path (on par with the path up Gleouraich) leading onto the Bac nan Caraichean Ridge. At an altitude of about 650 metres the ridge has a level section from where the view ahead towards Sgurr Coire nan Eiricheallach first opens up. Strong wind greeted us there and made it clear that todays Munro would not be bagged strolling along the ridge in bright sunshine worrying about sunburn developing on our arms and necks. Soon the highest point (891m) of Sgurr Coire nan Eiricheallach was reached and it became apparent that the continuation along the ridge leading to Sgurr a’Mhaoraich would be consisting of ups and downs and bends and corners to be turned. In other words: nothing difficult but quite contorted. Ok. On we went and made progress towards Sgurr a’Mhaoraich. In the clouds and mist which had closed in on us we negotiated the outcops below the summit. Scambling over grassy rakes and some snow left over from the winter we finally reached the uppermost part of the south ridge and marched to the 1027m summit of Sgurr a’Mhaoraich. We had our obligatory summit sandwich … [Read More]