It turned out that one of them probably was a Munro-bagger, and probably had been wearing appropriate Munro-bagging footwear. The other two I found a bit further up, busy improving the path. It was clearly thanks to their efforts that the path was so good, the quality deteriorating noticeably once I had got past them. In fact, it wasn't long before the quality of the path became fairly irrelevant since the whole thing was completely covered by snow. Since it looked like I would soon be in mist which was still clinging to the higher ground, it was time to get the map and compass out and start heading up on a bearing.

Climbing towards Carn Ban Mor