April 2026: Lochaber fun

First day

A spell of good weather and late lying snow still on the high summits presented an opportunity to combine a clear-out of a handful of remaining second round Munro Tops in Lochaber with a last couple of snowy camps. And having summit camped Ben Macdui last year (number #11 in the 60-for-60 project; see also this account), Ben Nevis was crying out to be included too!

I caught a train to Spean Bridge and then a number 41 bus towards Fort William which made a useful excursion up the access road to call in at the Nevis Range's bottom gondola station (check the bus timetable; not all do!). I rode that up to 600m and traversed around east, initially along the line of the now disused "Braveheart" chairlift.

The crossing of the Allt Choille-rais was easy enough, and I was soon on Tom na Sroine, the first of Aonach Mor's two northern tops with a view of the "back corries". Skiers' tracks were visible, and I could make out a few folks skinning back up over the rim but they must have preferred to head for the last gondola down rather than do another ski descent as they did not reappear.

The second top of Stob an Chul-Choire followed easily enough.

The cliffs of Aonach Beag dominated the views to the left.

From there, it was crampons on and ice-axe out for the descent to the last bealach and the final steep ascent to the Aonach Mor plateau. Some drippy wet ground below a snow patch provided an opportunity to load up on water for a camp; I'd not been carrying much as I knew I'd be able to melt some snow, but this close to the summit I didn't mind loading up. I discovered my CAMP Corsa Race ice made an excellent improvised water spout when whacked into the soggy ground: with holes at the head to function as intakes and a hollow open shaft with no ferrule plug blocking it, it's as if it had been designed specifically with this use-case in mind.

From the top of the slopes it was a short distance across the plateau to the Aonach Mor summit cairn (1221m), with Ben Nevis and Carn Mor Dearg (CMD) now dominating the view.

At this point I had a choice: camp on the substantial snowbank around the summit cairn, or a short distance away on exposed grass. I chose to pitch on the snow: I'd hauled a set of snow stakes along, and I was going to use them!

What had been a very light wind dropped off completely to zero, and a spectacular west-coast sunset was observed.

The views were so distracting, dinner was quite late (a camping staple: couscous with some fried up chorizo, chilli and onion).

Second day

The good weather continued! There was some low-lying fog in the glens to the north, but it was quite far off and there wasn't the "above a sea of cloud" impression some inversion conditions yield.

I packed up and while the main objective for the day was to get across to CMD and Ben Nevis, it would have been rude not to first pay a visit to the slightly higher neighbouring Aonach Beag (1234m). The summit there had more complete cover than its lower neighbour, but it also seemed quite sloping unless a bit too close to the cliff edge for comfort, so I did not regret pitching on Aonach Mor the previous night.

Returning from Aonach Beag towards the path descending west off Aonach Mor, I encountered a party of skiers apparently intending to explore the corrie below Aonach Beag.

Some snow on the steep path down was easily avoided by diverting onto the slopes, and then the climb to CMD was snow free.

On the CMD summit there seemed to be plenty of folks out to do the CMD arete approach to The Ben.

There was no need to go anywhere near any snow, but for the final climb to the summit I opted to put my crampons on and plod up a "snow road" rather than totter around on the rocks.

I reached the summit around 3pm. Given it was a Saturday with superb weather it was unsurprisingly mobbed.

I set the tent up a little east of the summit structures. The west side might have had better views along Loch Linnhe, but would have been in the main path of the arriving hordes. There must have been at least one drone in the air continuously until about 6pm when the crowds started to reduce.

The final few visitors included a Three Peaks Challenge group doing The Ben as their first one, and a local who'd had to work all day but wasn't going to let that stop them getting up to enjoy the conditions. But by around 8pm everyone had disappeared and I was alone on the summit.

This was camp number 40 in my 60-for-60 project.

Third day

The morning saw increasing wind and gathering cloud and I knew it was forecast to deteriorate further over the day.

I was surprised there were still no other arrivals by the time I was packed up and headed down, not even any Three Peaks Challengers. Descending, I could see some folks at the bottom of the steep bit, but I'd veered off to the northern Carn Dearg Munro Top before I met them. I was pretty sure I'd visited this spot before several times in my climbing days, but had no record of having been there since when I'd decided I'd include the Tops with my second round of Munros so I needed to go that way to be sure.

From there I crossed the now busy main track to also visit the other southern Carn Dearg Munro Top. This one I definitely hadn't been to before, and with around 200m of reascent up backsliding scree to return from it I doubt it sees many repeat visits!

That completed all the remaining Munro Tops in this part of the world for me. I headed down the zigzags past the "halfway lochan" and then into Fort William on the road from Achintee.

I didn't need to be back in Edinburgh for another day, so there was still time to do something else (and get another camp in): with the weather not looking so good as it had been the last couple of days and public transport options slightly limited by it being a Sunday I decided to head for a couple of un-bagged Grahams north of Loch Eil: Aodann Chleireig and Meall Onfhaidh. After resupplying at the Morrisons I caught a late afternoon train to Locheilside station (a "request stop" one).

From there, a 1km walk east along the A-road (wide grass verges, fortunately) gave access to forest tracks and (after a deer fence climb, a burn crossing and some steep grass) I was camped up at ~620m just north of what's marked as Beinn an t-Sneachda on the OS mapping. The first actual Graham summit lay another couple of km further north and could wait until tomorrow as it was quite late in the day now and it was threatening to rain. Looking back towards Fort William, Ben Nevis was now thoroughly shrouded in cloud.

Fourth day

I was in cloud in the morning, and there was almost continuous rain. But I packed up during what seemed to be an extended break and set off to bag my hills.

The cloud gradually lifted as I left the first Graham, revealing fine views of Gulvain to the north (and still needed for my second round).

After a slog up steep grass slopes, the summit of Meall Onfhaidh was reached, with two cairns (the larger one actually being lower) and some lochans.

From there I followed the SMC guidebook's suggested route to drop off eastwards to meet the track coming up from Gleann Suileag. I resisted the temptation to poke my head into the Glensulaig bothy, and marched out the track to Fassfern and then back along the road again to the station and a train home.