The road down to Kinlochhourn...problems.

[EmilyD]

My partner spoke to the Highland council today, as we had plans to climb Gairich this coming weekend. The chap on the council who is dealing with this told him that the whole mountainside is unstable and they are not even allowing workers and assessors to walk underneath it. It will require blasting and stabilizing work, and they'll have to send people in from the top. There's a 4x4 track they're letting locals with high clearance four-wheel drive vehicles use, but that's not available to hillwalkers and other visitors, even with 4x4s. You can walk or mountain bike that, of course, but it makes it a long walk-in. The road won't be open until after the new year.

[prog99]

TBH I think Gairich will be pretty unpleasant at the moment.

[CharlesT]

TBH I think Gairich will be pretty unpleasant at the moment.

Second that. I was there in late October and the boggy bits were passable but very wet then. It's a longish walk over the bog before you start to climb and I guess it may be almost impassible in places now after the last month's rainfall.

The land above the road near the dam looks very unstable from the pictures and another landslip could happen at any time. Think the hills around Loch Quoich will be off the agenda until next summer.

[rohan]

You can walk in from Glen Sheil e.g. over Maol Chinn-Dearg and down to Loch Quoich or over Bealach Duibh Leac and follow stalkers path over Bealach Coire Sgoireadail then up Sgurr Thionail and along to Sgurr a'Mhaoraich. I took the former route in last weekend but was camping so had plenty of time to walk back over the Watershed route (Sgurr a'Mhaoraich Beag, Sgurr a' Mhaoraich, Sgurr Thionail, Sgurr Bhac a'Chaolais then the S Clunie ridge to Sgurr Coire na Feine and back to Glen Sheil). Lovely weather but I was conscious of the landslips further east. There was nothing similar where I was ( my TR is on Long Distance Routes Forum).

[EmilyD]

Our plan had been to take a kayak across the loch and then climb the mountain.

[rohan]

Our plan had been to take a kayak across the loch and then climb the mountain

Ah, that's a shame. I hope they get it sorted so you can eventually manage it.

[Sunset tripper]

It looks like the landslide is near the dam. Is there more than one and if so are they all in the vicinity of the dam? At what point is the road actually closed?

Also it's a nice cycle up that road, plenty of ups and downs but a good option?

[Skyelines]

I drove up the road a couple of weeks ago.

The road closed signs are just before Kingie Lodge by the agricultural sheds on the left just by the woodland.

I drove past as it was a Saturday and didn't anticipate too much works traffic.

At grid ref: 085019 there is a decent area to park/turn round by a bridge with a tree beside. A few hundred metres further another sign put up by SSE indicates their work area limits. Still quite a way from the dam. I wasn't sure if turning may be difficult further on so I reversed a bit and turned where I had seen some space for a four point turn.

It looked like the crags marked with a cave on the OS map had broken off a large chunk and taken quite a bit of hillside down. I should have taken some pictures as I had a 600mm lens in the car.

[Sunset tripper]

Cheers for the info. I know where you mean so not too far from the dam.

[al78]

I can believe them if they say the mountainside is unstable. Last week I was looking at the Met Office rainfall radar one day and all the highlands was getting rained on for the entire day, and that is after the landslide. If there is much more rain up there I wonder if other slopes will slide.

[gaffr]

Hello,
You can see from the last image, taken from on the Dam, that I submitted on the 14th, November just how close all this is to the structure....for folks heading to Gairich no more than a stroll.

[prog99]

https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-scotland-highlands-islands-46439184

[EmilyD]

The council told us that they would rather people not go underneath the slide on foot, bike, or anything else. You probably could, but it isn't recommended. There is still tons of unstable rock, and they would prefer not to have to dig bodies out. They said that it will have to be assessed from above, as they're not willing to send their own people underneath it.

[Scraggygoat]

For Gairich alternative approaches are possible either from Glendessary, or by biking the forest land rover tracks up Glen Kingie. Note The west shoulder of the hill has a fine stalkers path up it, which is far drier under foot than its eastern counterpart.

With regard to crossing the land slip, I'd treat it like any other rubble shoot in the Alps or further afield. Dry weather with no works activity above, pass quickly and do not linger. Wet weather, heavy thaw or works activity above avoid. I wouldn't drive across, due to risk of getting your vehicle 'trapped' on the far side.

[snowchainsandsocks]

On 16th November I walked over to the road from Glen Shiel and met 2 guys who had walked from Glenfinnan over the previous 4 days and were hoping to get a lift out. They hadn't heard about the landslips but weren't keen on going up and over the S Cluanie ridge.("we've had enough big hills and bog"!) I hope they got something beyond the slips.

So what's the status now? Is it sorted or still the same? I am planning to visit somewhere this weekend?