Creag Meagaidh
A Quality Mountain Day - Creag Meagaidh
Sometimes, a grabbed spare day in the hills turns into something really special. I'd headed up to the Highlands to meet a group for a week's walking holiday that I was working on as a guide in the Cairngorms, and as the weather forecast was for wall to wall sunshine with just enough of a breeze to keep the midgies away, I had decided to go up a day early and have a solo walk, just for me.
The walk into Coire Ardair has to be one of the most magnificent in Scotland. You enter the corrie via lovely old woods of pine, alder and birch, the whole valley being ringed by high and rocky mountain ridges - Creag Meagaidh itself to your left, and the starkly contrasting roll of Munros that terminate at Cairn Liath on A'Bhuidheanach to your right. A herd of red deer looked down at me from Coire a' Chriochairein, and I had a brief glimpse of a female golden eagle as she hunted on the thermals of this spring day.
Snow still hung in the higher corries and gullies still glistened with old neve. The air was still and crisp, and the walking underfoot along the path was easy. At Lochan a' Choire I stopped for a bite to eat, and to marvel at the massive buttresses that form the backdrop to the water. Here lie some of Scotland's hidden gems in terms of winter mountaineering and climbing, including the superb Smith's Gully on Pinnacle Buttress, the classic ice routes on the Post Face, the sublime Staghorn Gully just to the right, and the Pumpkin and the Wand up in the Inner Corrie.
To the right of the cliffs of Creag Meagaidh is an obvious col, The Window. The slopes leading up to the col were deep in soft spring snow, and gave an easy ascent to the rocky bealach. I then climbed southwards up bouldery slopes, following a vague path onto an expansive plateau, and followed the rim of the cliffs to look down into the depths of some of the gullies that I'd admired from below.
The actual summit of Creag Meagaidh doesn't sit above these crags though. It lies well over a kilometre westwards, across the open plateau, and here I saw the first signs of spring having arrived on these wild uplands. Golden plover piped from the gravelly beds of the plateau, and a dotterel, another wading bird of the same family, had joined its cousins on their summer breeding grounds.
The summit was gained by heading out across pathless terrain, reaching a dome marked on the map by a large ring contour at 1110m above sea level. Beyond the dome, a broad ridge led westwards again as I picked up a stony path that took me over more snow patches to the summit cairn of Creag Meagaidh at 1130m.
From the summit I headed back to the top of The Window, taking a more direct line and enjoying the views down onto Lochan Uaine. What a superb place this would be for a wild camp, or even a winter snow-holing expedition! From The Window an easy scramble up rocky ground on the north side landed me on the summit of Stob Poite Coire Ardair, from where the gently undulating ridge leads eastwards over Sron Coire a' Chriochairein, then Meall an t-Snaim. From here huge herds of red deer could be seen down in the corries to the north of this ridge, and a couple of mountain hares took exception to my presence and bounded off down-hill with their comical lolloping gait.
An easy pull up the western spur of Carn Liath saw me on my final Munro of the day, and I plunged down heathery flanks to the south, aiming for the little knoll of Na Cnapanan at 623m. An easy walk on a boggy path from here took me deep into the woods that flank the Allt Coire Ardair, and so back onto the track I'd walked on my way out that morning.
Start Point: Creag Meagaidh National Nature Reserve Visitor Centre car park. Grid ref: NN482873.
Distance: 22km
What made this a QMD? Amazing weather. Spectacular scenery. Exploring a wild upland plateau well off the beaten paths. Great views of golden eagle, red deer, mountain hares, golden plover, dotterel, ptarmigan, and woodland birds. Three Munros climbed, as well as a number of subsidiary peaks over 3000ft.
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