Above the Fara, blood red mackerel clouds streamed in from the eastern horizon. Looking west again I watched Bens Alder and Bheoil slowly congealing against a turquoise sky; across the Bealach Dubh, the Lancet Edge of Sgor Iutharn, stabbed indignantly at a few last defiant stars.

From somewhere low down on Ben Bheoil's black flanks came the doleful roar of a rutting stag. From somewhere nearer, out there in the dark rolling heather, came the staccato barks of a hunting dog fox. Another stag roared and then another, and yet another.

As I sipped my tea the steam condensed on my glasses; as in a dream, the scene became hazy. "Porridge is ready," came a sleepy voice from the bothy.

By the light of a couple of stubby candles I'd made the first brew of the morning and come outside to reconnoitre the coming day whilst Kate got busy with breakfast. Soon the oil in the frying pan was sizzling and spitting as our eggs and bacon did to a turn. More tea. I washed up down at the river while Kate made the sandwiches; and then it was time to leave.

I left first, Kate reckoned she'd need another half hour to get ready. (These lassies and their makeup!). Picking up the little path I set off with the sound of the Allt a'Chaoil Reidhe, singing the morning in.

Dwarf Birch are quite rare in Scotland nowadays, but the estate have managed to get some of these diminutive shrubs to grow along the burn hereabouts. I trod warily!

Though the dawn had promised so much, I was annoyed to see thick clouds already fluffing themselves on the higher ridges; was it to be yet another day of compass work and stunning views of boots and blades of grass?

The lower few hundred feet of the Lancet Edge come in steep, rock studded grass, but by getting my head down I was soon on the broken slabs and ribs of the arête. Like Ben Alder's two Leacas, across the Bealach Dubh, the way up is an easy scramble, far more interesting than a simple walk.

The mist must have seen me coming, it raced down to meet me, robbing me of views. Yet every now and then it would shred momentarily to tease me with a fleeting glimpse of the depths below; once it even let me gaze down to the corrie floor below the Diollaid a' Chairn, from whence, like the dark eye of an ogre, Loch an Sgoir glared back at me.

And then, before I'd hardly gotten started, it was all over. There was the little cairn; I was standing on the arrow's tip. Before me rolled a grassy plain and beyond, a gently rising field of boulders.

With compass in hand I steered a course through the fog to the summit of Geal Charn. Nothing to write home about, except that the breeze was beginning to stiffen. I didn't hang about.

A well defined grassy ridge with an obvious path had me down at the next col in no time.

Aonach Beag, the next summit west, is another easy climb, made the more interesting by virtue of its stonier stairway.

For a short distance the path traverses just below the skyline, above steep Choire a' Charra bhig. I could see nothing, but, through the thick smoke of this deep cauldron, there drifted up the chatter of the water that rushes down to join the Uisge Labhair.

There is just room enough at the summit for a cairn; almost immediately I was plunging down again, this time above the corrie of Lochan a' Charra Mhoir. Alas, unlike Lochan an Sgoir, this adamant pool refused to show its face. The stony path wove itself around the horse shoe ridge of Beinn Eibhinn, even its beautiful northern cliffs fell away unseen below my feet.

There was little to hang around for. Summit visited I retraced my steps to the cairn on Aonach Beag. Here I almost went astray! I set off downwards through the gloom, but within seconds I had the feeling that something was amiss, that I was going in the wrong direction; there seemed something unfamiliar in the grass.

I rummaged around for my compass, but didn't need it. Suddenly, and for no more than two or three seconds, the cloud I stood in rent itself asunder to reveal the ridge below. It was broad and green. The ridge I'd previously ascended was narrow and rocky. I was heading down north instead of east!

No harm done. I was soon racing down to the col below Geal Charn. By now the wind was blowing a gale, it was freezing; I was glad to be descending.

But not so quick! At the saddle, just below the path, were some big boulders. One of them was lilac! And it could talk! "Come and share my rock, Frank."

It was Kate. We huddled together, grateful for the shelter, and shared a sandwich and a drink as we compared notes on the day so far. Kate seemed a little dispirited. What with the biting wind and the cloud, she wasn't sure that she wanted to do the entire round.

Yet even as we chatted we noticed the cloud begin to thin. The steep western flanks of Geal Charn suddenly came into view, and stayed in view. At our feet Coire a' Charra Bhig, opened up its steep grassy slopes, green in the way that only much rain can make them. "That'll be my way off, I think. I fancy a walk over the Bealach Dubh," I told Kate.

It was a steep descent on wet grass, and then a rough, pathless struggle along the playful feeder burn into the pass. At one point I went down into a hidden, goo filled bog hole, up to my knees.

Somewhere else, whilst testing the depth of a suspicious looking peat hag that barred my way, I was astonished to find that, on retrieving my deeply buried trekking pole, its basket had been sucked clean off by the thick black ooze. I usually have to hammer the things off!

When I eventually reached the path from Ossian, the sun was shining fiercely and the only cloud in an otherwise pristine sky, was plonked fat and square over Aonach Beag's crown. Looking west I could see Loch Ossian, stretching away like a huge blue banana.

Beyond, far across the wet moor of Rannoch, Buachaille Etive Mor, rose like a Matterhorn and the Aonach Eagach's notched ridge ripped the sky like a saw.

The climb up and over the bealach was the last exertion of the day, but it was easy and short lived and the waters of Allt 'Bhealach Dubh, offered me both refreshment and joyous company.

At last the sun was shining; the walk back to the bothy would be a pleasant stroll. Above me, on my right, the dark, waterfall riven crags of Ben Alder's northern corrie towered skywards. Across the glen, Sgor Iutharn rose sharply and stonily towards this morning's first summit.
There came a point in the path where I recognised my own footprints going in the opposite direction. I'd closed the circle, another half hour would see me back at the bothy enjoying a much desired cup of tea.

There was no one in the bothy so I had to brew my own. It was about an hour later, whilst supping more tea at the bothy door, that I spotted Kate meandering down the hill behind the hut, she looked weary. I put the kettle on afresh.

Fifteen minutes later Kate burst into the room and flung her back pack down by her sleeping bag. She looked done in, yet she still looked happy and well pleased with herself.

After I'd left her at the col, she'd gone on to Beinn Eibhinn and then back tracked to cross the Diollaid a' Chairn, for Carn Dearg. Now she was hungry. And I was on the dinner today...