Once again we were quite late away in the morning as we set of from Corriemulzie Lodge on the 5 mile walk in to Magoos Bothy.
The story behind the place was that an RAF pilot was lost in action in the Kosovo war, in his memory his squadron members renovated his favourite bothy back in 2002.
Summit ridge of Craig an Duine
A friend has been hankering to visit the place for sometime after reading the story in a Trail magazine so the knack was to make it into a worthwhile weekend.
We arrived in approx 2 hrs had a quick brew & set of to ascend Seana Bhraigh but by which route, now that was the question.
As there were some tricky get your feet wet river crossings to be had a group decision was made to walk round the upstream end of the loch.
Maggoo's Bothy
This took us right under the main ridge of Creag an Duine a very impressive ridge that the guidebook described as a grade 2 scramble in summer conditions.
Today it was cloaked in snow & ice but the group was up for it so we went on up, gaining the main ridge was tricky with wet snow lying on top of unstable blocks however once the main ridge was gained it eased for a while.
As we gained height the difficulties started again, at first they were easily turned but as the ridge steepened it became more difficult & exposed.
The group did fantastic, I had too short rope people up a few sections but generally it went very well, near the top the character of the route changed.
Onto the Plateau
It became very exposed & we found some tracks where someone had traversed some ledges to find the best way up.
Eventually we solved the problem & 5 of us stood on the summit pinnacle very impressive but we were faced with the option of a difficult down climb, abseil or turning the pinnacle on steep snow slopes.
We did the latter and found a continuous grade 1 snow slope back to the summit plateau.
The route may have been a grade 2 scramble but it was a now a grade 2 winter route & well worth doing the route is of a similar quality & difficulty to Ledge Route on Ben Nevis.
Final Summit slopes
When we gained the plateau the clouds rolled away and left us with stunning views of the summit and all the surrounding area, the Assynt hills were particularly impressive as too was An Teallach the summit we had climbed the day before.
At last we stood on the summit but it was late in the day & the sun was sinking rapidly so we made haste past the summit crags & down the voie normal ridge.
The final obstacle before the bothy was a river crossing where we all got wet but its not to bad at the end of the day.
Guess who didn't have full control of her legs
The night in the bothy was quite eventful & some members of the group were a little worse for wear in the morning-a memorable evening.
We walked out in the morning and set of on the Long haul south feeling very pleased with ourselves.
