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My turn for the car. The roads looked fine, but a gritter was out in Strath Glass. A red squirrel skipped lightly across the road in front of us. I edged gingerly up and over the hump into Glen Cannich, round all those tight bends. A single-track glen this is, much too nice to hurry, even in the dry. After careful robing, especially with the gaiters, which several ascents of Sgòrr na Dìollaid reminded me would be useful today, we walked the hundred metres or so down to the little track to Craskie, treading carefully along the hitherto unseen crazed ice surface. I wheeked out my 1:25,000 1970s Second Series OS map, which, unlike any of my 1:50,000 jobs, covered all of our intended route. The plain concrete bridge slung low across the Cannich above a weir, however, did not feature on said map.
The morning was sharp, the chill more noticeable in these parts, shaded by the steep north face of Meall Dubh. An unoccupied cottage at Craskie and a handsome crag just a little to the west offered good foreground, the sun struggling over Meall Dubh to pick out woods and hillside beyond, with snow evident. The nip in the nostrils made it feel good to be right here. Stags roared up on the hill. Past the cottage, we were soon putting more effort into it to win through an admixture of heather, bracken and the odd bit of grass. Like a Christmas pudding with wings, a woodcock burst in alarm from a cranny by the Craskie Burn.
With a wee wriggle, we were through a loosely-strung fence then across the burn, pushing on through patches of bracken up to a cluster of rocks for a breather. Glen Cannich reveals, as hereabouts, plenty of evidence of fault-guided topography, and even at our relatively modest altitude, our eyes telescoped towards Loch Mullardoch and its mountains, Beinn Fhionnlaidh the star turn. The same line continues on to Loch Duich. A lone snow bunting bubbled overhead.
A tough push bore us up to a slender-cairned, nameless, but attractive top, the high point of another long rib running parallel to the crest line above, feeling much the same as the many approaches I’ve made from Glen Cannich to nearby Sgùrr na Dìollaid. We stopped here for lunch and got cameras busy, capturing what we could of the lovely contrasts of light and shade, and the palette of late Autumn colours. This top opens the wider view and offers a clear line, along the same rock rib, towards Loch Coir’ an Uillt Ghiubhais and on to our main hill. A dipper buzzed upstream as we sought a vague line around the lochan then tacked due east, the going soft, even over mostly unsupportive snow, right to the summit cairn. Another piece break, then a wander a little northward for a keek into Strath Farrar, none too fetching from this vantage, more woods and hill slopes, with no visible water bodies. We strained hard but failed to spot any walkers. On such a grand day, a few souls must surely have been out tackling those grand high ridges.
We reconvened down near the lochan. I peeled off to climb Sgòrr na Ruadhraich, another chopped-up blob on the north Cannich skyline with the same fault alignment evident in exposed rock measures. There’s a few interesting outcrops on this outlier, and rather more flattering angles on Càrn Gorm too. I re-joined Tony. Right down to the tree line, we continued to enjoy superb views in changing light. Down-sloping and damp heather stems then jungles of bracken kittled the temper as we strove to catch as much of the waterfalls and slides on the Craskie Burn as we could. I lost a lens cap during this stint. Our battles didn’t let up until we were more or less back at the cottage, smothered now in shadow. Bridge, road and car were still icy, and another careful drive was called for to return to Cannich.
Although I have travelled much and climbed some terrific mountains abroad, I consider myself fortunate indeed to live in a country with such landscape variety. Fortunate too that I can still look forward, fitness notwithstanding, to walking amongst mountains that complement each other so well. Like many Corbetts, the Grahams very often stand apart, offering quite different perspectives on the bigger tops. The ticking game goes on, but the rewards linger long in the memory. A hearty “
slaintè!” to this latest little gem.
