This was my first trip since 2001 and the first main trip without Graeme who was unable to make it. I still had company though as a friend, Roy Tugwell, had joined me on this trip. This hill was picked as likely to be dead easy for two old codgers. Weather a bit wet so it was full gear on when we parked at the Heritage centre car park, same as for Creag Meagaidh. The top of the hill was snow covered which made us wonder what it was going to be like up there but the top was clear and the way fairly obvious. You use the same path as for Creag Meagaidh, remembered as well made and marvelled at the sight of a couple of rainbows shining right up Coire Ardair. We broke off the path at what looked to be the right point to head up towards the shoulder called Na Cnapanan. The walking was steady and not too steep but a bit rough climbing through heather. Just as we reached the shoulder we came across a path but
where it came from I don't know - we looked for its start later in the day but couldn't find it. After this it was just a steady plod following the path for almost all the way and the route was not at all difficult. Roy was content to let me lead and happy to accept my slow pace. I think this to some extent helped me as I didn't feel any pressure to go faster as I usually do when trying to keep up with Graeme. The snow when we reached it was not so bad, quite patchy and avoidable, being about 6" deep in places. An easy climb to the summit where I had the usual Guinness and Roy a flask of (let me whisper it) hot chocolate. Chatted to a guy who had been climbing yesterday in appalling conditions. He had also this week driven up to the North and climbed Ben Hope and Ben Klibreck. He raved about the former but did not rate the latter much. Congratulations to Roy on his first munro, made even better by the glorious views we had had of the Coire Ardair cliffs laden with mega snow. A nice easy climb and suitable for both a first munro and for a first day climb. So far the weather had been reasonably good with only a few of those annoying showers that have you putting your waterproof jacket on and off all the time. No mist at all.
Coming off the summit we hit a light snow shower but no problem. I got my direction a bit wrong so we had to detour around the hill for a bit until we again met the path going down, just above the shoulder. Shortly after at a fork in the path we took the right path (we came up on the other one), steeper but avoiding the shoulder and looking more direct for descent. Although it did take us down to the Coire Ardair path I don't think it is used much as it got extremely overgrown towards the bottom and even had young trees growing up the middle of it. You would never spot this path from the main path. Back to the car for juice A good day for Roy who is fitter than me (who isn't?) though he did seem to have problems when coming down on rocky ground.
