| Date | 28 Sep 2025 |
| Route | Link to Route |
| Enjoyable | |
| Difficulty | |
| Conditions | Dry, cool breeze, occasionally misty |
| Summits | ✔ (M) Carn Liath ✔ (T) Meall an t-Snaim ✔ (T) Sron Coire a' Chriochairein ✔ (M) Stob Poite Coire Ardair ✔ (M) Creag Meagaidh ✔ (T) Meall Coire Choille-rais ✔ (T) Puist Coire Ardair ✔ (T) Sron a' Choire |
Parked up in the Creag Meagaidh nature reserve car park just before 9am, easily finding a space even though there was quite a lot of cars and camper vans. Taking the path running alongside the road, we headed up first to the Nature Scotland building, which has a 24hr toilet, then up the well made nature trail on the right.
Around a kilometre further on, we took the path to the right up some steps which climbs up through the trees. Just after the small summit of Na Cnapanan, we took the quite muddy path that snakes to the right, then up around the hill behind. In hind sight it may have been better and quicker to head directly over it.
From here the path becomes much rockier and steeper on the way up towards the first Munro. There had been some mist moving around the hills and occasionally cold, so we had an early lunch around 100m short of the plateau where the conditions were calm. Afterwards, it was a short push up and around to the north east to reach the first Munro, Carn Liath.
Heading due west we skirted around some of the rockier summit to make our way onto easier ground before heading up on to the first Munro Top, Meall an t-Snaim, the ascent considerably easier than it looked from the Munro.
We followed the path wsw for around a kilometre before there is a steep drop and then ascent ssw up to the summit of the second Munro Top, Sron Coire a' Chriochairein. The mist had disappeared for a while now, and the walk along the ridge gave us truly fantastic views towards Creag Meagaidh.
Continuing west then south west up a steep section before the trail heads up gently along a line of old fence posts to the summit of the second Munro of the day, Stob Poite Coire Ardair. From here the path drops down around a 100m to the bealach, called the window. We headed up the steep path and took another break about halfway up. We had met quite a few people on our hike, but after this point we didn't meet anyone until we got back to the Nature Scotland building.
Reaching the wide plateau we headed up past the false top, Mad Megs Cairn, and quickly reached the last and highest Munro of the day, Creag Meagaidh. As it had turned a bit colder we only stopped for a short time to take in the views and some photos.
Instead of heading back to the window, our plan today was to take in all the tops along the south ridge, so we headed south east over some boggy ground towards Moy Corrie. From that point there is a slight dip then a short push up onto the Munro Top, Meall Coire Choille-rais with its very unimpressive cairn of just a few stones.
Time was getting on and we realised that if we included the the further away Top, An Cearcallach we might get caught heading down off the ridge in the dark, so we decided to leave it and instead head east along the ridge. This turned out to be a very good decision!
After skirting around the cliffs of Lochan Coire Choille-rais we headed up the towards the next Munro Top, Puist Coire Ardair, where we finally picked up a path, which helped on the steep descent, then ascent towards the last Munro Top, Sron a' Choire.
From this point on there was no path off the summit, instead we headed ene down a steep grassy section towards the south side of some large boggy puddles. We tried to follow the Allt Bealach a'Ghoire stream, but the combination of steep terrain, heather and grass made this quite tricky and time consuming, much lower down we spotted a trail cam attached to a post along with a rough path to follow off the steeper part. Eventually we found a much better ATV track that took us all the way to a footbridge over the Allt Dubh. We had to don head torches as it was getting quite dark and we decided to head via the Nature Scotland Building to use the facilities, before reaching the car park.
Once changed we thankfully managed to make the chipper in Kingussie, before the long drive home.
