Leg 49a | munrorelays.co.uk

Leg 49 part 1

June 14th 05.50 - ?

100                   Sgurr na Ciche
101                   Garbh Cioch Mhor
102                   Sgurr nan Coireachan

Sarah Dunn and Hazel Dean

The long leg from was abandoned in the stormy weather after crossing An Eag

Sarah Dunn writes:

Well, Knoydart surely delivered the adventure, aided by some rather less than clement weather over the last couple of days. Logistics were always going to be complex. Hazel Dean and I were the third part of the chain on a journey started by Katie Henderson from Kinloch Hourn to Barrisdale, over Ladhar Beinn, passing the squirrel on to Sue Savege to traverse Luinne Bheinn & Meall Bhuide, before tagging myself and Hazel at Sourlies bothy to pick up the 5 Munros on the ridge back from Sgurr na Ciche to Loch Cuaich.

Our plan was for an early Monday easy hike in to Sourlies where we would relax and await Sue’s arrival sometime early afternoon, before heading back over the hills into the evening. Except that unbeknownst to us, the bad weather overnight had caused the schedule to slip by quite some hours…..

To cut a long story short, we ended up with an unscheduled bothy night, were saved from complete hunger and shivering by a knight with a big rucksack, made friends with Jim from Orkney and his satellite messaging system, extracted Sue from a large bog, then re donned our wet kit to head out into the murk on Tuesday morning.

Sadly the weather was still pretty grim up high, with persistent wind and rain. Progress on wet rock was slow, and under fuelling from the previous night was not aiding energy levels. We cleared off the first 3 Munros to successfully tick off inner Knoydart, but then made the call to take an early exit from the ridge before the 2 final tops planned for our day.

It was a very long and very boggy hike out, but we were still managing a smile, and we’ve left a lovely pair of hills for some fresh legs to tackle tomorrow.