Sarah's Walks in Kintail in April 2018

by Tish Woulds

What a pleasure it was as organiser of this year's Easter Meet in Kintail, to receive these sketches from Sarah. They really catch the mood of this great area, a wonderful place for Munroists, Corbetteers and those who love walking the glens without necessarily having to do tops! This was Sarah's way of going about things!

Whilst many of the groups agonised over whether to carry ice axe and crampons (or whether mini spikes and poles would be sufficient in the rather changing and challenging snow conditions) and where to leave vehicles, Sarah, with no car just packed her bag and sketching stuff and walked from the hut! Arriving back late most days, she covered many kilometres!

Kintail kitchen, view from bunkhouse kitchen
Sketches by Sarah Williamson

Members took on many of the nearby Munros, walking from the hut to A Ghlas Beinn and Ben Fhada or driving a short distance to the North and South Glen Shiel ridge , Ciste Dhubh, A'Chralaig, and Mullach Fraoch-choire. The weather kept us guessing. After a perfect day in ideal snow on Beinn Sgritheall, things changed for the three groups that set off for the Five Sisters. The ascent to the Bealach an Lapin was in the sunshine and the view ahead was enticing, but the weather closed in. Two groups completed in strengthening winds, deteriorating visibility and poor snow conditions. My group of three decided to bale out although we were not sure that an escape route off the ridge existed! After close examination of the map, we decided to descend from Bealach na Craobhe, just after Sgurr na Ciste Duibhe. This worked well with long snow fields meaning we could get down quickly and safely out of the wind; this could have been very slow or maybe impossible on the rocky sections without the snow cover! We were pleased to get down!

So what did Sarah do? After a gentle first day of about 14km, she spent three days up over bealachs and down to lochs averaging about 20km a day. On the Thursday, Sarah walked from the hut around the whole Beinn Fhada massif! I estimate that as about 28km. On the Friday, not surprisingly, she wrote her route as "in the valley bottom-sketching"!

We saw Sarah on to her bus at the end of the glen on the final day. When I received her sketches, she wrote that the only down side to sketching was that when she got home, she found she had a tick, the result of this stationary hobby!

View to Sgurr an Airgid and Beinn Bhuide from the bunkhouse

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