Cnap Cruinn

[rob munbett]

I'll start by being honest and saying that this was not the most enjoyable of hills: the weather was unexpectedly poor and, on the latter half of the walk, the terrain was unrelentingly awful! I parked just before An Dubh Lochan on the minor road to Fersit and headed of west on the track through the bracken up the slopes to reach a metal gate and the dismantled tramway track. Across the gate I headed right and followed the track, which was very wet in places, to the dam.

Cnap Cruinn from the tramway

The track continued to the Allt Laire which had to be crossed to reach the forest road on the other side - but there was no bridge. Ah well .... my boots were wet anyway! I followed the road NW until it reached the corner of the plantation and open ground. From here I headed straight for the summit but the underfoot conditions and the terrain were some of the worst I had ever encountered: the ground was boggy and undulating, plunging down into deep dips and then back up steep sided foliage coated rises and try as I might I could find no other way. On the map, it's about 2kms but it seemed to take me ages.

Heading over to Cnap Cruinn

It was now that the weather got worse and the higher I got, the visibility became non-existent. I was so frustrated that I merely touched the mass of the cairn and headed back down - no stopping at any point on this day! Even more annoyingly, the weather cleared(a bit) for a spell and I was able to look across Glen Spean to Creag Dhubh for a short while before it disappeared again.

Looking over Glen Spean to Creag Dhubh

I got to the car, drove back to the hostel and had my lunch there - and had a good moan with my friends.

[Johnny Corbett]

Got to agree with you on this one about the terrain. I did it as a plan b after failing to get up the neighbouring Munros