North!
The A9 is a road which never fails to fill me with excited anticipation. Once past Perth, the hills seem to grow higher and steeper with every mile, getting progressively more enticing as the journey unfolds. The long trip up the A9 for me, means the beginning of my annual walking holiday in the Highlands. This year, all the studying mountain books and drooling over OS Maps since Christmas came to a hurried rucksack-packing finale on a June Friday. Unfortunately one of my hill-walking partners was relocated to South America, while the other failed to reach a satisfactory outcome in spousal negotiations, so unusually this year, I was on my own. Any negative thoughts that solo walking meant having to do all the navigating, were soon offset by the joy of being able to indulge my idiosyncratic (my wife uses a less kind adjective) music taste in the car. I arrived in Ullapool mid-evening, in time to buy some fish and chips, and watch the fishing boats unloading the day’s catch, while clouds gathered around the distant shapes of Beinn Dearg and The Fannichs; the latter my destination the next morning.
All I needed was a good night’s sleep – a proposition rendered impossible by an old chap who climbed into the bunk above me at the YHA; and snored voluminously all night - through a vast moustache.
Into the Fannichs (click here for pix).The "Mountain Weather Information Service" is an excellent website which gives helpful guides to hill conditions. Many YHA’s and bunk-houses do walkers the service of displaying their predictions. On the basis of the MWIS forecast, which assured me that the high ridges would have perilously high winds in which I wouldn’t be able to stand up, I opted for a low-level walk on my first day. From the A832, I took the track to Loch a Bhraoin and from the footbridge over its outflow, followed the Allt Breabaig into the glen. It’s a delightful burn, which changes character several times as one ascends its length, meandering widely, carving little gorges, and tumbling through boulders. It also treats the walker to some lovely waterfalls to stop and enjoy en route. The track crosses the river at a ford and then works it way higher along the glen on the East side. This ford is easily missed, but is worth finding because the path which continues on the west bank, soon disappears into a bog.
By mid-morning,
I had walked from the A832, round Loch a Bhraoin, and up to the coll above the headwaters of the Allt Breabaig. Realising that wind wasn't as bad as MWIS predicted I thought I'd see what it was like on the ridge, so climbed East onto it, between Sgurr nan Each and Sgurr nan Clach Geala. Again, wind predictions proved to be alarmist, so I climbed the ridge to the first of these, and back. By now the wind had dropped, so I climbed Sgurr nan Clach Geala, probably the finest of the Fannichs. The corrie, between it and Sgurr Mor, is breathtakingly gorgeous and there were enough gaps between clouds to see the whole view, from the grandeur of Torridon to An Teallach’s pinnacles – reaching upwards like a hand trying to grasp the clouds. The first hints of the promised wind started on here, so any thought of going across to Sgurr Mor was abandoned in favour of an exit via the smaller Munro of Meall a Crasgaidh. While it’s summit was a little blustery, it wasn’t dangerous thanks to a quick descent off its sheltered westerly flank.
I got back to Ullapool for the evening, where other walkers told me they that my days experience was by no means uniquw because the MWIS can be prone to a little hyperbole. That night, needing little more than a good sleep I settled into a deep, peaceful slumber when the old fellow in the ‘bunk-upstairs’ started up - now snoring like a distressed animal.
When it’s just too much!
Sometimes the Mountain weather forecasters get it exactly right. My second day in the North was just such a day; with just as much wind, rain, and fog as mwis.org.uk predicted. Summer had turned to winter within 24 hours. The hostel remained full for much of the day with gloomy looking outdoors-types wandering about with maps or staring bleakly through rain lashed windows. Ullapool isn’t such a bad place in the rain, it has several café’s and pubs, at least two bookshops. My highlight was a trip to the harbour, buying some fresh fish and cooking back at the hostel. It was a frustrating day for me, but I made the right decision not to go up. I subsequently discovered that the Mountain Rescue Service had had a very busy day with two hypothermia's and a Duke of Edinburgh expedition party cut-off behind impassably swelling rivers by Slioch.
At least it keeps the midgies away!With the promise of improving weather, the following day once again I headed off round Loch a Bhraoin and up the track alongside the Allt Breabaig. Two days previously the Allt Breabaig had been a pleasant burn, but two days of heavy rain had transformed it into an angry torrent, the crossing of which was unthinkable. The path was tantalisingly within sight on the far bank of the river, but, stuck on the west bank, I struggled through bogs, peat hags and swelling tributary streams, also in spate. It took nearly three exhausting hours to make the coll, twice as long as the same journey two days before. Anyone walking in the Fannichs planning a descent down the Allt Breabaig should ensure that it is ford-able, or face the prospect of being cut off, miles from the car, when almost at the finish-line!
Sgurr Breac is a charming mountain, nicely situated to the west of the main Fannich ridge, with nicely sculpted corries and steep cliffs. I know this, because I had a great view of it from Sgurr nan Clach Geala two days previously. When I turned Westwards from the coll to climb it, I couldn’t see a thing. A compass bearing lead to a ridge upon which a feint, scratchy path intermittently lead towards the summit. As I sat by the cairn, the wind increased, the visibility reduced and the temperature plummeted. Ah- Scotland in June!
Careful navigation is required on the ridge between Sgurr Breac and A’Challeach in bad weather. I was grateful to have my GPS with me to double-check my compass work. I realised on the ridge that a walk that would have been a pleasant amble in sunshine was turning into quite a challenge. There are times in the hills when you realise just how alone you actually are. The Northern ridge of A’Challeach ends in steep cliffs which need to be avoided, but Eastern side of the ridge is too steep to descend immediately. In fog some pacing is required to ensure a descent eastwards is taken between these obstacles down to the burn flowing from the Loch Toll an Lochain.
Cold, tired, hungry and feeling somewhat battered by wind rain and cold, I got back to the loch, and up the track to the car. I met one person in the hills all day, he trudged past in the gloom and paused, only to lift the gore-tex hood from over his mouth and grimly mutter, "At least it keeps the midgies away".
Back in Ullapoool that night, the old chap in the bunk above me snored like the roaring of an injured sea lion- all night. Next year, I’m going to a B&B!
Happy As a Pig In MuckOn my last day in the North, I set-off to walk the main Fannich ridge, from Beinn Liath Mhor Fannaich, via Sgurr Morr, Meall Gorm and down to An Coilleachan. Although the summits were in cloud, the ridges were clear and I had some breathtaking, if fleeting, views of the whole Fannaich range, of the bulk of Beinn Dearg to the North, and Fannich Lodge down amongst the trees to the South.
The walk-in from the A835's Tromdhu bridge, where the Abhainn an Tourain Duibh enters Loch Glascarnoch in the famous Dirrie More; is long. A new bulldozed and signposted track through the adjacent woodland significantly speeds up the access, as it drops the walker near a footbridge at the bottom of the climb up Creag Dubh Fannich, the first top of the day. The walk from here to the top of the first Munro, Beinn Liath Mhor Fannaich seemed to take an age, but the sight of Loch Gorm and Loch Li nestling underneath the day’s long ridge ahead, spurred me, with lengthening strides, up into the heart of these hills..
The beautiful sweeping curved ridge to the graceful summit of Sgurr Mor is spectacularly wonderful - even in cloud. When I climbed it, only the top of it was truly hidden in cloud, and it looked magically mysterious. This craggy elipse, faded up into the mist above, looking like a helter-skelter descending from the heavens.
Amazingly I didn’t meet a single person on this magnificent walk until I was on the descent from Meall Gorm, the third Munro of the day. On the southwest top of the hill I met a lady in the process of completing the Munros before her 60th birthday.
The bealach between Meall Gorm and An Coilleachan has a distinctive little lochan which is on the 1:25,000 maps, a nice feature to aim for if you approach it through think cloud on a compass bearing, as I did. Gaining the summit of An Coilleachan is a straightforward clamber up through boulders, followed by a return to the lochan on the bealach. The map and compass insisted that from here the descent was due North off the side of the mountain into the fog! It proved to be better than it looked and I was soon down to Loch Gorm.
Here I met the almost Munro-completist that I'd seen earlier in the day, also on her way down. A quick map conference revealed that I was planning a descent the way that she'd come up, by Loch Odhar. She advised against it, saying that it was a quagmire and so instead, together we navigated a route over Meallan Buidhe. She'd also noted where bridges and paths were - which made the return trip easier. These routes in from the North and West, will no doubt become more popular now that access to Fannich Lodge by car is no longer permitted.
It was good to chat to her on the way down too. A Duke of Edinburgh expeditions examiner with a vast amount of hill experience and knowledge - she had many good stories to tell and insights to give. Hill-people are consistently interesting, friendly and engaging. We looked down into Dirrie More, and dreaded the thought of its desecration with vast pylons. Standing on Meallan Buidhe, looking back up into the mountains as the sun illuminated the days route, the vastness of it all was humbling. Some see creation as pointing to a creator above and beyond it, others see the world as simply glorious in its own right. I am of the former persuasion, but amongst us all in the mountains, there is the camaraderie of an acute sense of our own finitude.
Route finding in the far North seems to be much harder than in the Southern Highlands. There are two reasons for this. Firstly the number of people are, far fewer, so even established routes rarely gain good paths; and secondly the cairn-building hobby so marked in the South, has not reached the North yet. In the Southern Highlands, it seems that every navigationally significant point is marked with a cairn; not up North. Whether this is simply because there are just fewer people there (and so therefore less chance of there being people who like building little towers out of stones) or whether it is that the kind of walkers who venture up there are less inclined to this activity; I couldn't say. However - without the aid of these things, and with long walk-ins to truly remote mountains, in pretty foul weather, walking is certainly more tiring, and more consuming of both physical and mental energy.
Percy Cowpat and his little brother referred to me as the "SMB" - which stands for "Sad Munro Bagger", a term of abuse for hillwalkers, dished out with some glee by those who class themselves as "real climbers". They may have a point too, for I left the Fannaichs cold, tired, aching, and with saturated boots. Back home I reclined contentedly in my chair and put 9 small ticks in my Munro book - as happy as a pig in muck.
