The Auchinleck Munro Maniacs hillwalking club had decided that this year we should go further north to “bag” some of the northern mountains. I then booked us into a cottage at a small village called Aultbea, which lies on the beautiful setting of Lochewe with sandy beaches and glorious mountain ranges as far as the eye could see. I don’t think we could have handpicked a better week for the trip as the weather really was superb, except for one day when we got a little rain but the rest of the week more than compensated for that day.
The five members that went this week were 1,Danny “poops” Gemmell, 2, David “mitchum” Smith, 3 David “bunny” Peden, 4, Tom “alf” Lennox and myself John “ponty” Donnelly. We got a mini-bus from East Ayrshire council through Forge Ahead and this made our trip easier with the amount of luggage and foodstuffs we took, also hillwalking equipment such as rucksacks, waterproofs, boots, poles etc. This meant that we got everything and everybody there safely and altogether.
Danny picked me up at 5-15 on Saturday morning then went around to pick the rest of the team up before setting of north via Glasgow, Perth, Inverness then onto the A835 Ullapool road where we turn of about 12 miles south of Ullapool onto the A832 Gairloch road. Along this road about 32 miles we arrived at the cottage which was a fairly long journey that would take around six hours to get there but we had planned to stop on our way up to walk a single Munro, this made our trip a very long day.
Our first walk was a mountain called Ben Wyvis (Glas Leathad Mor). This took us 4 hours 15 minutes to complete the walk and it was a good start to loosen up for the rest of the week.
On our second day we took to the beautiful An Teallach (Sgurr Fiona and Bidein a’ Glas Thuill) the weather really made this a great day out and to be honest it was my own favourite of the week. On the second summit of Bidein a’ Glas Thuill it had a special meaning for me as I “bagged” my 100th Munro a feat that was achieved by Tom later on in the week. The walk itself took us 7 hours and 15 minutes.
Day three took us further north to another double Munro of Conival and Ben More Assynt. This was the only day we got bad weather with low cloud and rain at the summits we never got any views at all. This walk took us 6 hours 20 minutes.
Day four we went to walk four hills Beinn Dearg, Cona Mheall, Meall nan Ceapraichean and Edidh nan Clach Geala. The weather was back to dry with sunny spells again and we had a descent walk all be it a long one of 8 hours 40 minutes.
Day five we intended to tackle three hills of Meall a’ Chrasgaidh, Sgurr nan Clach Geala and Sgurr nan Each but with the weather being glorious sunshine we also took in another two of Sgurr Mor and Beinn Liath Mhor Fannaich. This was our longest day in the hills as it took us exactly 10 hours to complete but with plenty of breaks and rests we managed to “bag” an extra two Munro’s which was a good bonus. We also had an added bonus when some of the team were privileged to meet Cameron McNeish a keen walker and author of the Munro books.
Day six we decided that we would have an easier day so we took on two Munro’s of A’Chailleach and Sgurr Breac. We made this our last of the week and all in we completed a massive 16 Munro’s, which is good by anyone’s standard.
Next year we may have more members and it is already in the pipeline to book up for the Torridan region so roll on next year. John Donnelly
