Parked opposite the Cluanie Inn and walked down the road to the path recommended in the Munro Book. The pathway is clear though muddy in parts and leads all the way into the corrie. The weather was good (and no midges) and the way forward and up the corrie was obvious. The path takes you up to the col and even where steep there are no difficulties. The col which is flat at first is full of peat bogs and there was a minor problem as to which way to go. I can imagine that it might be difficult in mist but in clear weather we could see there was a path halfway up the face of the ridge. We had a difference of opinion as to how to reach this path. Graeme wanted to go direct to it over a hump but I felt you needed to go left to the bottom of the ridge and contour below crags to the path. We could also see three people going straight up the middle of the crags, to the right of the path but knew they had taken on a rough route. I had a horrible climb and contour only to find out on reaching the path that you could then see it going all the way down to just a few yards from where Graeme and I had had our discussion. He had got it right and had a nice, easy though muddy climb. On the ridge it is just a slog, bypassing a pointy top (which the other three also climbed) and on towards the main top. At the cairn we were joined by the three who were older than expected. All were experienced climbers and gave the impression they had already done all the munros and were now looking for the tops. At least one was retired, he had met up with the other two ( by plan or accident I don't know). At least two of them came from Haddington but all three were English. We had a good chat and they were lots of fun. This summit is fairly small and has only a small cairn but it has the most fantastic views - a real delight. A slight mist but generally good.
I should mention at this point that it had been our original intention to climb Aonach Mheadhoin as well but when we got to this summit and saw the size of the climb to the other peak we chickened out and decided to call it a day with one peak. Interestingly I note that the Munro Book now shows Ciste Dhubh as a single and links Aonach Mheadhoin with Saileag. - Oh how I wish we had picked this one off when doing Saileag. It would have been so easy. Back down the same way as going up making sure I followed the pathway this time, an uneventful return to the car. Graeme reckoned on threequarters of an hour to the car but I think it was closer to 55 minutes - an hour for me.
