Writing this at the Inchnadamph Lodge Hostel, Tuesday 11th. So far everything is in fact on schedule, but some fairly epic days out...

Sunday climbed Ben Klibreck with Gill. Didn't get off to a good start, as we managed to make the map disappear. Not sure how - we didn't see it blow away, but equally it was't in the car when we got back. Anyway, continued to the top, relying on being able to follow a south or south east bearing back to avoid steep ground to the west. Slow going through snow to start with, but rewarded with an almost alpine view along the snow plastered ridge, complete with sunshine, cutting wind and spindrift blowing across. The upper section was extremely icy, much more so than Hope, and to make it worse we got about 1 second of view before the storms closed in and made it almost complete white out. First time that Gill had used crampons - 10/10 for getting up and down! The group shelter was again invaluable, allowing a really comfortable stop in what would otherwise have been fairly grim conditions. We then carried on along the ridge in alternating poor and total lack of visibility, following a bearing S then SW. This was very effective in avoiding the steep ground...unfortunately too effective as we overshot and came down the wrong side of the mountain! This wouldn't have been too much more effort, except for the intermittently waist deep snow on this side! Eventually emerged at the Crask Inn, 4 miles south of the car, after 10 hours on the hill. Michael from the Crask Inn gave us a lift to pick up the car, and we stayed in the cottage with more great food. Gill had been planning to leave that evening, but due to the late return set off early next day instead. She claimed to be still planning to come back next weekend, maybe?!

So, Monday, after continuing the unbroken run of cooked breakfasts, headed over to the west coast on the bike. About 45 miles, didn't stop too long due to the biting wind, but impressive views of the snow covered isolated peaks out to the north west. Arrived for two nights at Inchnadamph lodge, below the next objective - Conival and Ben More Assynt.

Tuesday dawned not exactly clear but not too bad, so set out up Conival. Athough warmer than it had been there was low cloud and still a fair bit of snow, so somewhat apprehnsive of what conditions would be like. Made steady progress over Conival though and onto the mile long ridge to traverse to Ben More Assynt and back. This again was fairly straightorward to start - although visibility was poor there were enough rocks visible to gve some contast, and the lack of snowfall had left ocasional footprints to follow. Further along however the snow built up and made it very hard to see anything much (spent a long time traversing along the side of what probably was a cornice free ridge, but as I couldn't see it...). Also, the wind got up on this bit, so when I got the summit block I had to kind of lie onto it using my ice axe to avoid being blown sideways. I think it was the summit. There was no visible cairn but a kind of tor / block thing. I went a bit further down the other side and established that the ridge a) went down, and b) changed direction, and also counted paces back to a lower summit to establish that, to within the scle of a 1:50000 map, I had been in the right place, but there could have been a higher feature 10 yds away and I might not have foud it. Anyway, shall count it as climbed unless anyone lets me know that there is a 60' cross on the summit or something.

So back down and not too stiff, but definitely hoping for a spring thaw. Have had some memorable hill days, but this could get tricky if it carries on like this! Anyway, an easy cycle to Ullapool tomorrow, for another hostel, fih and chips etc.