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After weeks of biding in due to the high winds,
this weekend didnie look so bad in some parts,
so I was awa from work sharp on Friday, and found myself at the free campsite at Taagan for 8PM. It was deserted for once! So managed to get the premium spot
Dougie joined me later on. It was a bonny star filled night, which deteriorated but it was just soooo good to be doing something, the weather didn’t really matter.
Up early on Saturday – sunshine and blue skies - I was raring to go. We had been thinking about a walk along the north side of Loch Maree for a couple of weeks, so we left Sunny at the Incheril car park and took the other car up to Poolewe to start the walk.
We took the well maintained path out past Loch Kernsary, spotting crannogs and admiring views of the way ahead.
We seemed to reach the farm in no time, and after admiring a bonny string of ponies, took the very good track toward Ardlair. After a brief encounter with an insane collie, we finally got our forst views of Loch Maree, and some snowy Torridon peaks
A quick march saw us at the turn off for the path up Beinn Airidh Charr. There were a couple of bikes left there, but we never did see the folk they belonged to. The path had obviously been a track at some point, but the national trust or whoever had reinstated it back to a path. Still looked a bit of an eyesore tbh but maybe time will heal. This took us to a bonny wee gorge,
and that’s where the uphill started. Things had begun to cloud over and it was getting pretty windy. Still had good views out to sea though.
The path was a goodie, but the weather deteriorated, so we were walking head on into the snow
We reached a fine corrie, the snow pelting us so hard in the face, it was difficult to look
A wee climb took us up to the top of the burn, and we bypassed round Spidean nan Clach. The corbet top was in sight – just a thin veil of clag - or maybe it was mental spindrift. The wind had got crazy. I could hardly keep my feet, let alone make any forward progress
so we had ‘the conversation’ and decided that we wouldn’t be bagging anything today.
At a little over 600m, we traversed round the hill, there were traces of a path long forgotten, but sare feet none the less from the camber. It was a little further round than we were expecting, but some right bonny views of the islands in the loch made everything OK.
The rain/wind/snow eased and it turned back into a nae bad day. We made it over a minor coll, and started our descent into Strathan Buidhe beyond.
It looked like it would be a steep descent on the map, but it wasnie too bad. We got to the path – an old, but well engineered thing that we paused to admire, before heading down to the burn to find a camp spot. The local deer must of known we were coming because they had grazed a fine flat patch of grass for us.
It was a right bonny, deserted glen, with rocky pinnacles above and a tantalising view down to Fionn Loch at the end. Sublime.
We were just getting the fly sheet on when it started spitting. By the time we were in, and blowing up our sleeping mats the rain sounded vicious! It felt quite early, but turned out we were just in time
The rain and snow continued without a break all night, and didn’t exactly motivate us to make an early start in the morning. By 10 AM, it did calm down a bit, so we packed up our soggy tent and managed to get ourselves back on the path.
All downhill to Letterewe, where we stopped for a bite to eat and watched some folk load up their boat.
We were having a bit of trouble finding the right path from there,
as the tracks didn’t seem to correspond that well with the tracks on our map, but there were some handy signs about. We passed some more lovely ponies, (Must remember a tube of polo’s next time) trying to avoid the deepest of the mud along a farm track.
The path we were looking for was marked on my GPS, so we just walked in the right direction until we found it.
Unfortunately, when we did find it, we realised that the bridge was out over the river
so we had to walk back downstream to the track to get a bridge, climb a fence and negotiate some boggy ground before we were back at the path. The rain was light but pretty much constant now, and it was really warm – must have been 10 degrees, so felt almost like summer!
Finally on the right path, we realised that not many folk come this way, and what would have been a grand pony track once, was hard to follow in places. Looking at the amount dead bracken, it would be even trickier in Summer.
We passed many ruins, some old crofts, and also densely packed terraces dug into the hill – old workers cottages from a time when heavy industry dominated the area.
There were plenty of rocky crags above to marvel at and a major forest regeneration project which involved a lot of deer fences. Young oak and birch trees are definitely getting their hold back. A lot of wild/feral goats too – less wary of us than the equally ample deer, they watched us make slow but steady progress along the loch.
We passed enclaves which looked a lot more like a sea loch than fresh water. The wind whipping up the surface to make some impressive waves
The rain got heavy for a time, but it didn’t seem to matter much. Below Slioch, the path all but disappeared, but a rocky rib made for easy going underfoot,
and after making our way through a bouldery re-entrant,
we finally caught sight of end of the loch.
And the weather improved somewhat after that
We were tiring a bit by now. It’s was a surprisingly tough walk! The last few miles of path were familiar, and the chat was all about our Slioch bagging stories. We got back to Sunny with perfect timing, at sunset.
What an enjoyable walk
I can vouch that the rumours of Loch Maree being the most beautiful loch in Scotland are true.
Just the drive back to Poolewe to pick up Dougie’s car before the long drive home. Unfortunately hit a deer en route, so looks like Sunny will be emptying my bank account and be out of action for a couple of weeks.
A sure sign that the weather is going to perk up while I’m stuck at home
Just typical!
