CWT - a Coigach-Assynt variant
Posted: Thu Dec 12, 2013 11:39 pm
I’ve enjoyed reading everyone’s CWT adventures here; it certainly seems a cut above your average LDP.
CWT fans may know that David Paterson’s original route from the early 90s reached Ullapool by nipping over Loch Broom from Altnaharrie when that was an upmarket restaurant linked by a ferry. Better still, his proposed route went on to follow the coast to the Coigach peninsula and then head north, passing among many of the distinctive and eminently pronounceable Assynt peaks.
The ferry and the hotel/resto are long gone, but the Coigach-Assynt stage must still rate as a ‘missing link’ on a CWT. As Paterson says: it’s ‘one of the best day’s walking in Scotland’ and to me the Assynt isn’t like other mountain areas in Scotland; it’s the difference between Mont Blanc and the Matterhorn. One may be higher but it’s the other that catches the eye.
Mostly through paddling I’ve got to know the inland lochs and coast of this area well in recent years, so set off to track a more direct route from Dundonnell to Kylesku, straightening the eastward kink of the CWT. We allowed ourselves four-and-a-bit days to do this and planned to use packrafts (lightweight rafts) for the water crossings. Packrafts offer a whole new way of enjoying the Scottish wilderness, and in mid-winter are certainly preferable to deep wading. More about them later.
Of course with over 17 hours of darkness, early December wasn’t the best time to be trying this, but who knows, we might stumble into a high and by day find ourselves tramping over frozen bogs under crisp blue skies! And if things went the other way, I knew the area well enough to slog out to a road or a good path, plus I knew people on the Coigach who could pick us up should the mobile work.
First Robin needed a shaft for his home-made paddle blades, one that could also double up as a walking ‘packstaff’ as I call it. I was using a proper 4-part paddle for the same purpose, but incredibly (especially given the time of year) Robin had got his gear down to hand-baggage size, although reasoned a two-part paddle might push the Easy Jet crew too far. So we popped into B&Q in Inverness for a broom handle and wandered over to Tiso’s next door for some lunch and tent pegs, a penknife plus some gas for both of us. With snow forecast in a few days, I eyed up some crampons too, having left my Mallory-era spikes back at home. In the end I decided I could borrow one of Robin’s if it got that slippery.
Around 7pm that evening the bus driver dropped us off at the Badralloch turn-off just before Dundonnell, and asked again whether we were sure we knew what we were doing.
‘There’s a bus that goes direct to Ullapool you know?’
‘It’s OK, we got a plan’, we assured him.
‘Watch out for the ditch’ he added, as I nearly fell backwards into a roadside ditch.
As the bus’s tail-lights disappeared into the spit-flecked murk, we dug out our head torches, oriented ourselves and set off for the six-mile road walk over the Scoraig peninsula to Altnaharrie.
CWT fans may know that David Paterson’s original route from the early 90s reached Ullapool by nipping over Loch Broom from Altnaharrie when that was an upmarket restaurant linked by a ferry. Better still, his proposed route went on to follow the coast to the Coigach peninsula and then head north, passing among many of the distinctive and eminently pronounceable Assynt peaks.
The ferry and the hotel/resto are long gone, but the Coigach-Assynt stage must still rate as a ‘missing link’ on a CWT. As Paterson says: it’s ‘one of the best day’s walking in Scotland’ and to me the Assynt isn’t like other mountain areas in Scotland; it’s the difference between Mont Blanc and the Matterhorn. One may be higher but it’s the other that catches the eye.
Mostly through paddling I’ve got to know the inland lochs and coast of this area well in recent years, so set off to track a more direct route from Dundonnell to Kylesku, straightening the eastward kink of the CWT. We allowed ourselves four-and-a-bit days to do this and planned to use packrafts (lightweight rafts) for the water crossings. Packrafts offer a whole new way of enjoying the Scottish wilderness, and in mid-winter are certainly preferable to deep wading. More about them later.
Of course with over 17 hours of darkness, early December wasn’t the best time to be trying this, but who knows, we might stumble into a high and by day find ourselves tramping over frozen bogs under crisp blue skies! And if things went the other way, I knew the area well enough to slog out to a road or a good path, plus I knew people on the Coigach who could pick us up should the mobile work.
First Robin needed a shaft for his home-made paddle blades, one that could also double up as a walking ‘packstaff’ as I call it. I was using a proper 4-part paddle for the same purpose, but incredibly (especially given the time of year) Robin had got his gear down to hand-baggage size, although reasoned a two-part paddle might push the Easy Jet crew too far. So we popped into B&Q in Inverness for a broom handle and wandered over to Tiso’s next door for some lunch and tent pegs, a penknife plus some gas for both of us. With snow forecast in a few days, I eyed up some crampons too, having left my Mallory-era spikes back at home. In the end I decided I could borrow one of Robin’s if it got that slippery.
Around 7pm that evening the bus driver dropped us off at the Badralloch turn-off just before Dundonnell, and asked again whether we were sure we knew what we were doing.
‘There’s a bus that goes direct to Ullapool you know?’
‘It’s OK, we got a plan’, we assured him.
‘Watch out for the ditch’ he added, as I nearly fell backwards into a roadside ditch.
As the bus’s tail-lights disappeared into the spit-flecked murk, we dug out our head torches, oriented ourselves and set off for the six-mile road walk over the Scoraig peninsula to Altnaharrie.