Having spent so much time looking at them the previous day, I decided to tackle these two on the Sunday morning. I spent some time reading up on a route that would allow me to continue on to Carn Mor Dearg and the arrete to Ben Nevis, but knew I didn’t have the energy to tackle such a big route, and so decided to just do the Aonachs. The CMD would just have to continue to wait for another day!

It was definitely the right decision. I did the Aonachs from Glen Nevis, which is the longer, more scenic approach as opposed to cheating by taking the gondola up Aonach Mor from Nevis Range. But the problem with the Glen Nevis approach is that the lower half of the climb up Aonach Beag is a steep grassy hillside with very little semblance of a path; utterly exhausting and more than a little nerve-wracking on a couple of occasions where I found myself clinging to clumps of grass and heather as I scrambled up the hillside.

Eventually the grassy hillside topped out at a massively wide bealach, just below the summit of Sgurr a Bhuic (not a Munro). The route then continued to ascend gradually, eventually reaching the rocky ridge which brought me to the summit. This final section was thankfully easier due to the solid rock surface and the clear path towards the summit. And wow, what a view when I got there!

I got a bit carried away taking selfies at the top – it was just too good a backdrop not to!

Getting from Aonach Beag to Aonach Mor was pretty straightforward, with a clear route down to the bealach between the two, and a clear path up the other side. Although it’s the higher of the two Munros, the view pales in comparison to that from Aonach Beag.

I hated the descent off Aonach Mor! Straightforward at first, returning partway towards the bealach before peeling off where a cairn marked the way, for a short section the path descended a wide grassy slope, but suddenly it narrowed to a horribly steep, loose scree chute. I was taking it as cautiously as I could, using my poles for additional balance, when a young runner came up from behind and squatted down onto her haunches, using all fours to descend with surprising agility. I copied her technique and it definitely felt a great deal more secure than trying to remain upright! But I was still very relieved when the gradient eased off and the path widened a little. Once I eventually reached the point where I would have needed to peel off for Carn Mor Dearg, I looked across to see where the route up it would be, and just one look at the scree slope on the other side convinced me I was absolutely right not up attempt it in my current tired state!

The lower section of the descent was horribly boggy – thankfully the glorious views went some way to compensating!

Overall I found this an extremely tough day, probably made tougher by the fact that my legs were tired from the previous day’s efforts. I’m certainly not in a rush to repeat these two – I’m just delighted to have completed them in such clear conditions!