Back around the Ring of Steall

On a glorious Summer's day, my wife and I drove North - our target for the day, The Mamores. In the classic TV series, "The Munro Show, Muriel Gray said that these are her favourite hill sin the whole of Scotland, and I can see why. It's been almost a quarter of century since I walked around the Ring of Steall, and it was my wife's first trip there. We spent a while trying to work out when I'd been there before, and the clue was that in the photos from that day was one Dr Harvey, a Kiwi who worked with my wife for a year at Perth Royal Infirmary in 1998! I probably agree with the redoubtable Ms gray about these hills, they are really magnificent, with great sculpted ridges, lush glens, incredible views of moors, mountains, glens, lochs, the sea, and rivers and waterfalls - with great access up Glen Nevis and great stalkers paths from glen to peak. I mean really, other than the midgies which lurk in Glen Nevis, these hills are heavenly!

We took the traditional route around the Ring of Steall, parking at the end of the Glen Nevis road, and going through the Nevis Gorge and over the rope bridge at the Grey Mare's Tail before taking  the stalkers path up to Am Gearanach - the first Munro of the day and the start of 'the ring'. The four  Munros (it was five, when I first climbed it) form a ring, the last of which lies over the 'devil's ridge' a wonderful little gnarly ridge with a bad step in it's centre.

Our problem was carrying enough fluid for a long day in a drought. I carried (and used 4 litres, and my wife 3), and yet still when we reached the River Nevis we were really thristy - it really was sweltering. It has been so dry that the air had a whiff of smoke, from big fires burning near Spean Bridge and at Glen Affric.

Last time we made a navigational error on descent, and came down far too far to the east, and over terribly steep ground. This time I was careful to head us NW off Sgurr a Mhaim towards Polldubh. this took us to a delightful riverside track back towards the car, via a footbridge.

The saga of my Munro bagging continues - I still haven't got round to doing the last two I need to complete, but have got further into taking my wife around my favourite walks. This surely is really one of the best - ridge walking at its absolute finest, Breathtaking and wonderful!

Glorious Knoydart

It is many years since I have ventured into that most special of Scottish peninsulas: Knoydart. Even the name Knoydart is enticing, and the glory of the scenery, the remoteness and emptiness of the hills and the romance of the history of the estate and community stir the heart!

My first trip there was with a church walking group, and we trecked in from Kinloch Hourn to Barrisdale Bay. Our weekend of hillclimbing was cut short by truly awful weather, lack of visibility and magnetic variations in the rock which made our compasses freak-out alarmingly. My second visit was a lot better, camping at Inverie Bay with my younger son, completing the Knoydart Munros despite battling mixed weather and midgies the size of hedgehogs...

This third visit was very different. This time my wife was with me (her first trip there), and we came in via Mallaig and the ferry to Inverie. Just getting to Mallaig proved to be something of an ordeal. A wide load was being moved across Scotland and we got stuck behind it's glacial progress from near Laggan Wolftrax all the way to Spean Bridge - which took over two and half hours!! They stibbornly refused to ever stop to allow the queues to pass and made us miss our ferry - which was very irritating! Thankfully there was space on a later ferry and the tea room had our fish and chips ready when we eventually arrived in Inverie. A load of our friends and neighbours were in Knoydart too, doing a big round of all three of its Munros, camping first at Inverie then at high level near Mam Barrisdale. We had hoped to join them, but I have hurt my neck and the physio advised against carrying an exped pack and not sleeping with proper pillows. So we opted for the b&b and to just doing one Munro.

So early on the Saturday morning we set off from 'The Gathering' and followed the track past the campsite and up the Inverie River towards the Loch an Dubh Lochain with our sights set on Ladhar Beinn. Before the loch we struck northwards up a 400 metre nightmare of a climb. Steep, overgown, wet, slippery and deep in bracken and brambles - it really was unpleasant. However it allowed for access to the high ridges which would prove to be such inspiring company for the rest of the day. Sadly there wasn't enough time to turn westwards from the low point on the ridge (Mam Suidheig) to climb Sgurr Coire Choinichean, the wonderful Corbett which stands over Inverie - so we turned eastwards and followed the many rises and falls of the Aonach Sgoilte.

 

With sun splitting the skies, the vast bulk of Ladhar Beinn across the corrie and mountains in every direction, it was one of the most incredible ridge walks I have ever done. In decent weather the ridges of Knoydart's great hills are simply unbeatable. Sgurr na Ciche looked suitably majestic inland, Ben Nevis away to the South is always distinctive, and out across the glistening Sound of Sleat, the Black Cuillin of Sky filled the horizon. Stunning!

At the unnamed top at 849m we stopped for a well deserved food and drink break. We could see a group which looked like our friends high up on Ladhar Beinn's summit ridge, working their way along it's rocky and bony finale. The ridge from where we sat, to where they were was steep, bouldery and involved so many great losses of gained height that Ladhar Beinn seemed to be a mountain that you had to climb twice to get up it! My wife doesn't especially enjoy scrambling (though she has done the Inn Pinn!) and didn't relish the couple of scrambly bits of Ladhar Beinn's south west ridge, but bashed up it anyway.

I couldn't help but remeber the appalling weather the last time I walked that ridge over twenty years

ago. This time, the conditions were perfect. The sun blazed (and we carefelly rationed our water supplies) while a gentle breeze blew to control the midgies. The summit of Ladhar Beinn, not only provides one of the greatest views of the West of Scotland's wild places, mountains, lochs, bays, seam glens and islands (and therefore the world's!) but must be the only place from which you can see the whole of the Knoydart penninsula from Loch Nevis to Loch Hourn. All the way in fact from heaven to hell.

We sat up there for ages - it was absolutely stunning. It was one of the finest views either of us had ever seen. In his song, "Knoydart", John Lees sang:

Knoydart mends a broken heart
Heals a tortured soul
Brings new life to tired minds
And brightens eyes that look upon
Sky, nothing but blue sky all around
Sky, nothing but blue sky
Feel the silence calling all around
All around 

The 'nothing but blue skies' line had previously jarred a little, as on my first visit here we couldn't see our feet through ther mist. But now, I understood what he meant! Marvellous.

We had a table booked at The Gathering in Inverie with our friends at 6:30, so we reluctantly had to leave Ladhar Beinn's summit - and continued down the NW ridge to the coll An Diollaid. There we turned southwest down a steep, but straightforward descent down to the floor of the glen, where a bridge in the woods, crossed the river and led to a track which took us back to Inverie. With time to spare we wandered to The Old Forge, to find it was closed for rennovations, but all our friends were sitting on the grsass by the bay - with drinks from the adjacent shop. So we joined them there before a wonderful dinner at The Gathering.

After that we just had the boat ride back to Mallaig tolook forward to the next morning. The end to an absolutelu fantastic weekend.  

Sgùrr Mòr (Loch Quoich)

Sgùrr Mòr (Loch Quoich) - the bit in the brackets distinguishes it from its namesake in Torridon's Beinn Alligin mountain, or it's almost namesake in the Fannichs, is a hard hill to get to! Apparrently it wasn't always such a difficult hill to access but became more cut-off after the completion of the Glenn Garry hydro-electrcitiy scheme which was commissioned in the 1950s and completed in 1962. It was the Loch Quoich dam which massively raised the levels of the loch, and extended its boundaries into several adjoining glens which buried the access routes under millions gallons of peaty water. The result is that access from the Loch Quoich side is now only for those who have a boat, and are willing to paddle accross the loch in search of the Northen ridges of Sgùrr Mòr.

The rest of us have to approach Sgùrr Mòr (Loch Quoich) from the south. That means driving the length of Loch Arkaig, and walking into Glen Dessary, then climbing over the Feath a Chicheannais pass into Glen Kingie, over which Sgurr Mor lies on its far side. Given the fact that the pass between the two glens has only an indistinct path, and is very boggy in places, and the road to the head of Loch Arkaig is long, narrow, steep, single-tracked with grass growing down the middle, and liable to be blocked with inexperienced camper-van drivers; it doesn't sound all that appealing. In fact nothing could be further from the truth - the road from the Commando Memorial out to Loch Arkaig is absolutely magnificent and every mile brings another surprise and delight.

Near the road end, there are countless spots for camping near the car - and my wife and I used one of these for a couple of nights to bring Sgurr Mor within easier reach. When the sun shines, and the wind blows - I can't think of a finer place to camp. It is stunningly beautiful, and very quiet. When the rain starts, there are few places to shelter, and when the wind stops and the midges rise from the heather like a dabolical plague sent to overthrow humanity; there is nothing to do but run!

So we ran, from our little camping spot, to the end of the public road at the car park and on into Glen Dessary. I'd walked further in Glen Dessary on my last visit to these hills, many years ago when I'd been on my way out to Sgurr na Ciche on the edge of Knoydart. This time though we took a northward turn at Glendessary farm and up over the peaty, wet and pathless pass into Glen Kingie. This glen is quite remarkable - a very remote and lonely glen, with no roads, tracks, or buildings other than the truly 'off the grid' bothy at Kinbreak.

Walking books are divided about the best way up to Sgurr Mor from the southern route into Glen Kingie. While they all agree that the delightful River Kingie must be forded (difficult in spate!) there they part company. Some books recommend following the stalkers path to the head of the glen, then up the long SE/NW ridge to the summit. Others suggest attacking the hill directly up it's steep, green sides - reaching the ridge just east of the summit. We took the latter option - and it was a brute of a climb, but which seemed to get us to within a few hundred feet of the summit in great time. 

The entire day we were there Sgurr Mor's summit remained hidden in a cloud that we we ascended into and descended out of. As there was nothing to see at high level, we abandonded our plans to walk the long stalkers path back to the head of the glen and instead descended from it from west of the summit, and followed a similar line to that which we had ascended. That brought us back to the refreshing waters of the Kingie - and the long slog back over rhe peaty pass, to the walk out along Glen Dessary to the camping spot. A big meal later and a glass of wine, was making for a pleasant evening by the lochside, until the rain arrived to dampen our spirits, and caused a retreat to the tent, relieved that I had also brought a good book for the trip! I finsished Sherry Turkle's, "Alone Together" before crawling into my sleeping bag. 

At last, I have also climbed a new Munro. All the climbs I have completed over the past year or so seem to have been repeats! With only two to do to complete the list, it becomes harder to actually get them done. I have only Maoile Lunndaidh and Cruach Ardrain left on my list - and so my thoughts have been turning to what I will do when I have completed the task. I could take up crochet!

Or I could seriously start bagging Corbetts. What is far more likely is that I'll do most of the Munros again with my wife. She didn't used to really like big hill days and when the kids were small she was more than content to send me off to the hills for the day. In the last three years she's got really into hillwalking and has raced to 76 Munros in no time at all. I've already made a list of favourite hills I've love to revisit with her.... Beinn Alligin, The Ring of Steall, The Buachaille, Cairntoul, Ladhar Beinn, and more. Perhaps (in the words of the Average White Band!), it might be a case of "Let's Go Round Again!"  

Return to Carn Dearg

Ah, the Monadliath! These great miles of undulating high country, of wide sculpted hills which somehow lack the 'superstar' status of the Cairngorms. No one seems to write books about these hills, or eulogise them in poetry, no Big Grey Men have chased eminent professors off their slopes, or developers pushed engineered paths or ski tows into their corries. There isn't a cafe for miles.

If you want to walk in the middle of the great interior of the Highlands, and not meet a soul, head to the Monadliath! They are hills which seem to smell of faded glory, where the clearances seem to have only happened recently and glens lie silent, where once there was life. Unlike the florishing of tourist mecca's, or what Alfred Wainwright called "the fleshpots of Aviemore", empty ruins with cold hearths exposed to the Monadliath sky sit here, West of the A9.

My wife has rarely ventured into these hills, and so with a free day to enjoy we drove to Netwonmore and up Glen Road to the little car park and walked West. Our destination was Carn Dearg, which my memory assured me was the finest of the Monadliath hills. Little seemed to have changed up Glen Banchor since I last walked these paths a decade ago. Glen Banchor looked the same, the hills looked the same and only the ruined cottages in the empty glens showed the passing of time.

It's a good old trudge northwards up the Allt Fionndrigh on a track which then climbs over into Gleann Ballach, which gives access in turn to the western flanks of Carn Dearg. The ridge from Carn Ban to Carn Dearg (945) to Carn Macoul is probably the closest thing to a ridge walk in this part of the world, and the views down into Loch Dubh below Carn Dearg's western flanks is particuarly lovely. We dropped down westwards from the ridge to intersect the path that goes up to the lochan - a path which it must be said is clearer on the OS Map than on the ground!

This led us down Gleann Lochain and into Glen Banchor for our walk back to the car. Strangely for the end of May, the temperature dropped dramatically as we walked back, past a ruined cottage and along by the charming river to the car and to home. The busyness and noise of the A9, with its buses, trucks and average speed cameras seemed to come from a different century to lonely Gleann Lochain. 

Carn Dearg is not Lochnagar, or the Buachaille, or Cairngorm - and is all the better for it. If you want to walk all day, from a free car park - and enjoy complete solitude, then the Monadliath awaits! 

Return to Meall Chuaich

It's well over twenty years since I have been up this rather neglected Munro. After the experience I had back then, it's perhaps surprising that I ever went back at all! While I have three Munros left to do to complete my round, they are all in awkward places requiring overnight stays and so I never seem to quite manage to get up to the far north to do them! On the other hand, my wife is up to around 75 hills ticked off on her list, which means that there are always loads to choose from, within easy reach of our home in Perth. To be honest, we often just reclimb old favourites, and I could have completed the munros a long time ago if I hadn't been up Bern Vorlich at Loch Earn countless times, for example! 

Picking hills to re-ascend is interesting because the ones that grab my attention are those in two extreme categories; the first are memories of incredible days which I would love to relive (like climbing Beinn Alligin in blazing sunshine with the (long-since emigrated) Percy Cowpat. The other extreme are hills on which the weather was so dreadful that I saw nothing, and got cold, wet and grumpy. These hills, it seems to me, should be given an opportunity to redeem themselves for they cannot be held responsible for the weather!

Meall Chuaich (spellings of this hill vary, the OS maps render it differently on the 1:50000 and 1:25000 sheets), is worth reclimbing for the latter of these two reasons. It was before my oldest son was born that I climbed this hill, with David - a pal from Dundee days. He was optimisic that the abysmal forecast was too pessimistic and that we'd get a clear hour or two.... but his optimism was entirely misplaced. His wide didn't join us that daym because she was suffering from plantar fasciitis, and had by far the better day back home nursing her sore foot! We bagan our day cheerfully enough, but spent the latter half of it wrapped up in thermal layers and Goretex, trudging wearily through driving rain. Strangely I don't remember much else about Meall Cuaich! The last I heard, David had emigrated to work somewhere in the Middle East. I'm not saying that the weather was what drove him from the Highlands of Scotland, but perhaps that day in Meall Chuaich was the final straw. 

At the start of this year's walking, my wife and I have been out and about in Perthshire, enjoying some of the lower hills like Birnam and Obney. We especially like the silence, lonliness and wide views from Obney Hill, and had been up that the day before. But she's keen to get Munro-ing again, so a re-visit to Meall Chuaich was in order for me - and an easy start to the year's +3000footer's.

The Dalwhinnie Distillery is a famous landmark on the A9, where the Laggan Road from the West Coast meets the main North-South route. Apparently the distilling tradition here goes back centuries to a time when drovers would trade cattle in these parts. The international drinks conglomerate Diageo continue some of that tradition today, although malting and bottling isn't done here anymore. However a dram of Dalwhinnie 15yo Single Malt is a very acceptable way to end a day in the hills. Light, heathery and honeyed, Dalwhinnie was the malt that converted me into being a whisky drinker when I was young. My first taste of malt whisky was a neat Oban - and I couldn't understand why people liked it at all. Now, I can't imagine not loving the tongue-warming smokiness of a fine malt.

The route up Meall Chuaich begins just after the famous distillery. The highways people have recently taken to numbering the layby's which is very helpful and to start this particular walk you want #94 on the South bound side btw. Many years ago while climbing the two other Munros on the east side of the Drumochter Pass, I had a navigational nightmare which began because I started in the wrong layby and nothing made any sense! According to my very old OS map, I was to start by a phone box - which I did. But either the OS made a rare mistake, or BT had moved their phone! Either way, it was only when I got to the top and surveyed the whole scene that the problem became obvious and the dilemma solved!

No such problems faced us starting at Layby #94, and walking a hundred yards North and taking the bulldozed track east into the moors, and turning left and following the concrete hydro-aqueduct up the glen, almost to the foot of the hill. Despite having to scrape ice from the car in Perth, the sun was shining and warming the earth as we walked past the turbine house and up towards the dam. Heather fires were burning in various parts of the landscape, and there were plenty of grouse running about in the heather too. 

Turning right just before the dam and loch, we turned east again and followed the track to a bridge over the river after which a footpath struck steeply into the sides of the hill. It's quite a hard pull up in places, but the views open up, and up and up - in all directions as you ascend. Hillwalking books are somewhat dismissive of the merits of Meall Chuaich as a hill, but all rightly note that the views it provides are impressive. After a long slog, and few bogs to hop, a large flat topped hill is reached, capped by a massive cairn - which was hard to find in poor visibility last time but was visible from miles away this!

The gleaming white distillery was clearly visible to the SW, in front of a wonderful view down Loch Erivcht into the Ben Alder group of mountains - still clearly snow-capped. Then, the magnificent Creag Meagaidh on the Laggan Rd looked massive, and it's famous "window" still holding a lot of snow and looking very hard to climb. The villages of Kingussie and Newtonmore mark the route of the A9 North, and the Monadliath Hills looks great from up there too. Only when you reach the summit do the central Cairngorm Mountains come into view. Being a thousand foot or more higher than the other hills, these high plateaus still had a look of Arctic tundra about them. 

With a chill wind picking up, after the obligatory summit photos (including a nice one of my wife and I, taken by the only walker we set eyes on all day), we headed back the way we came, Once out of the wind, down by a locked bothy, we finished the flask of hot coffee and tore into the huge slab of Fruit and Nut we'd got left from our lunch - before the hour long walk back alongside the aqueduct.

To kick off a year in the bigger hills, this was a wonderful start! 4 hours of walking, a good workout on the climb, and views to savour for a long time. The aim for the year for me, is to do some (if not all) of the elusive three munros I have left. My wife hopes to get from 75 up to 100. With the kids now being self-sufficient, its easier to get away to the hills together than it ever was. I just wish I had the knees I had when I was 30!