Inchnadamph..

..our last full day with A, our son and his girlfriend K. (writing these in reverse order to Dec 25th!),

We'd decided the night before to go down to Stac Pollaidh for a walk today. The views over Assynt and Inverpolly estate are stunning. It's a drive of around 40 miles each way, but provides a nice walk for us "oldies", while the youngsters could have a good scramble on top..

Driving South from Scourie, a few miles inland and the roads started to get a bit slippy, with frost and snow coverings. (It was quite mild and suny when we left!). Made it over Skiag Bridge, and the roads seemed fine. It worsened a bit on the way to Ledmore, but cleared again by the time we got to the Achiltebuie turning to Pollaidh.

Now we hadn't got out too quickly, and didn't envisage any problems. A mile down the road, and 2 or 3 from the car park, we were stopped on the single track by a gritting lorry. A conversation with the driver told us a snowplough had gone off the road, it was blocked, and we had to turn around and come back! Now, if we'd been more organised, and got out earlier, we could have changed our plans and gone up another hill. But as it was now 1:30 ish, we only had a short aamount of daylight left. We returned to Inchnadamph, and walked up the Tragail river. Tanni was loving it, a covering of snow, and deer tracks everywhere. She disappeared into the hills, but kept coming back to find us. After a mile or so, we caught up with her again and there was blood in her paw-prints. She'd cut a pad and was limping. So we had to turn back. Not going to get a walk today.

It had been raining when we started the walk, and it was just clearing to blue sky when I saw this shot of the top of Conival above (and below) the cloud. Looked like the craters of the moon (which is in the shot too!).

Called in at the Broch at Kylestrome on the way back. A was very impressed by it (as was I). Some good walls left after 2000 years, and an internal staircase in one section..