The Five Sisters of Kintail

The Five Sisters of Kintail form the ridge above Glen Shiel that Walkhighlands calls a classic ridgewalk of three Munros and a very strenuous day, and the National Trust for Scotland describes as one of the longest ridge walks in Scotland. The Trust’s Kintail page says the mountains have been in its care since 1944, and its own story on the estate dates the Battle of Glen Shiel to 10 June 1719; the start car park carries an information board about that fight. Walkhighlands gives the three Munros as Sgùrr Fhuaran, the highest at 1,067m, Sgùrr na Ciste Duibhe at 1,027m and Sgùrr na Càrnach at 1,002m, which only became a Munro in 1997.

Walkhighlands starts at the Glen Shiel car park on the A87 and sends the path up a boggy slope beside the forestry fence. That first climb is barely a kilometre long but gains 550m to the Bealach na Lapain, after which Walkhighlands says the hardest part of the day is behind. The ridge then runs west over Sgùrr nan Spainteach, the peak of the Spaniards in Walkhighlands’ translation, with a short rock scramble on the descent and a section of two crests that is very confusing in mist. Sgùrr Fhuaran’s west ridge is the first way down into Glen Shiel since that bealach; Walkhighlands says to climb the summit first rather than bypass it, because the steep ground at the head of the Allt na Carnach gully has seen fatal accidents. The walk finishes down the north bank of the Allt a’ Chruinn, by the waterworks.

The statistics are 12.4km and 1,400m of ascent in eight to ten hours, though the route text puts the finish about 13km from the start. Walkhighlands stresses that this is a one-way walk needing public transport, a bike or a lift back up the road, and lists the Citylink buses on the A87 as a request stop at the driver’s discretion. A fit party with a car at each end, a full day and a head for rocky ground will find it a match. It does not suit anyone without a way back, short of daylight or unsteady on scrambling, and Schiehallion is the Munro that returns to its own car park.