The Forcan Ridge

On Monday Keith and I headed back up to Glen Sheil, purely because we were too interested in watching Burn Notice on Sunday night to start thinking about what to do with the next two days until 10.30pm. We knew we had a couple of days worth of hills left to do up there, so packed up the gear and off we went.

MWIS had predicted a 30% chance of cloud free munros for the North West, so we weren't hopeful on awesome views from the summits (most of the hills we've done up that way have been in the cloud). We had always said we wanted to do the Forcan Ridge in the good weather since it looked like such an amazing day out...so it wasn't actually on the cards until we reached Fort William and it was still beaming sunshine.

The weather was an opportunity not to be wasted so Forcan Ridge it was. This ridge walk is a grade 2/3 scramble, with options to by-pass the majority of the hard bits and keep it at a grade 1/2.

view of the ridge from the walk up

The Start

What lies ahead

One of the spicier sections (grade 3?) - theres an easier option to the right

We opted for the direct line along the ridge, which takes in the harder (fun) sections. There is a bit of loose chossy rock about, felt a wee bit vulnerable at times without a helmet, but its totally fine as long as you stay close together so the other person doesn't get a knock to the head if anythings kicked off :)

The summit now in sight

We've made it - cereal bar time.

At the end of the ridge you reach the summit of The Saddle (1011m). We refuelled and then dropped down the south east slope into a scree bowl, then down to the bealach to head up for our second munro of the day - Sgurr na Sgine (946m).  This was an easy ascent, with a wee bit of steep ground. 

A cool looking dike in the rock

Summit of munro number 2 in sight

A totally dried up mini lochan, shows how dry the ground is up there just now

A happy couple enjoying the nice weather on Sgurr na Sgine

We spent a fair bit of time at the top of this hill enjoying the views and looking out at all the hills we've done - which is now pretty much all of Glen Shiel :) 

Getting chilly now

 At 9pm we thought we better start making a descent (we didn't start until 3pm, we're not that slow!). 

A raven (centred) with a view south

The mid afternoon/evening is by far the best time of the day to walk. Cloud has a chance to burn off with the sun, its not as hot and the sunset....aaaamazing. There were 5 other cars in the lay-by when we set off, we saw a few people in the distance but didn't meet anyone the whole day. Solitude - one of the reasons I love the mountains. 

Keith at the cairn on Faochag (909m) - which marks the start of the descent

Awesome views and sunset on the way down!

This was definitely one of the best days we've had hill walking, the Forcan Ridge is a must-do (direct of course) for any keen hill walker/scrambler :) 

We made it back to the car for 11pm. It took us 2hours to descend from the summit of Sgurr na Sgine, its a well defined 'path' but isn't great for the knees (quite steep).

Heres a bonus panorama (taken by Keith). Its amazing what smart phone can do these days!

The panorama (from left to right) shows the Five Sisters of Kintail (which we did in complete mist/cloud), followed by the Glen Shiel ridge, and on the very right Sgurr na Sgine summit. 

Janey