The Fast, The Slow & The Mountains - Ben Klibreck

[Meiklie Mist]

We had booked a couple of nights at the campsite in Altnaharra for my birthday and decided to climb Ben Klibreck as part of the trip. The campsite sits on the shore of Loch Naver, with the magnificent view of Ben Kilbreck dominating the southerly view.

Ben Klibreck from the north shore of Loch Naver at Altnaharra campsite.

On the morning of our walk, the sun was out, the sky was blue and the mountain proudly displayed a hat of rolling white cloud.

The official walk car park had been taken over by wind farm operations, so we parked a couple of hundred yards further south in a largish lay-by, with room for several cars.

Alternative car park.

We set off, the two of us (The Slow) and Meg (The Fast), our 18 month old Border Collie, just after 9am (well, we were on holiday!) and headed back up the road to the official start point. It was Meg’s first Munro and she’d been keen to get started from about 6am!

Looking towards Cnoc Sgriodain.

An ATV track heads up towards Cnoc Sgriodain. Immediately it was very boggy, so much so that a few mud wrestling matches were taking place along the way (just kidding ).

We’ve only climbed a small handful of Munros and none since before Covid-19, added to which, we are slow walkers, so we knew we were in for a long day. An hour and a half later we reached the cairn on Cnoc Sgriodain and by now the cloud had lifted from the mountain and the summit of Ben Klibreck was clearly visible ahead.

View towards Ben Klibreck from Cnoc Sgriodain.

After taking a few photos, and being passed by the first walkers of the day, we descended the short slope to some peat hags, which didn’t pose too much of a problem, and up the slope towards Carn An Fheidh. Meg, attached to a bungee lead around my waist (because her recall isn’t what it should be), decided that this human (and the other one) was far too slow and so it must be her job to pull me up the mountain and set to the task with gusto!

At this point I believe there’s a choice: either climb a little higher and walk along the ridge, or follow a narrow path that cuts across the western flank of the hillside at 680m. There was clearly still some patchy snow on the final ascent to the summit but none on the lower slopes, so we opted for the latter path.

Traversing the lower path (680m).

The path is clearly defined and easy going, but by the time we reach the end of it, we’d been passed by several other walkers.

At the end of the path there is a short patch of boulders to scramble over before the final push to the summit. We stopped and had lunch here and enjoyed the sunshine.

Looking up the final ascent to Ben Klibreck. The photo doesn’t do justice to the steepness of this section.

The final 150m is very steep, and if like us, you miss the path, you find yourself scrambling up loose, moss covered rock (not much fun). The wind picked up at this point and the chill factor probably brought the temperature down to about 4-5 degrees. Meg, who had been enjoying her first excursion into “mountaineering” up to this point, decided the wind wasn’t for her and promptly sat down and refused to go any further. However, with a bit of coaxing, we did manage to get her to the top - at this point with us pulling her!

Meg, windswept, at the summit of Ben Klibreck.

We reached the summit at around 2:30pm, having by that point been “lapped” by all but three of the other groups of walkers on the mountain that day.

We descended the summit on the official path, which was far easier than our unofficial route up. Meg was pleased to be let off the lead at this point - by then there was nobody around for her to pester, so we deemed it “safe” to release her, for a short while.

The return trip was tiring but the weather remained good. The last few walkers coming up passed us as we were going down, and then passed us again before we reached the bottom!

The most difficult part of the descent was from Cnoc Sgriodain, because Meg took the view that it was time to be relaxing at the campsite and did her level best to drag us down the last section back to the van as fast as she could.

The return route.

We arrived back at the car park exactly 10 hours later, tired and ready for a cup of tea but having thoroughly enjoyed the day.

It turned out that we were the first ones on the mountain that day and the last ones off!

Once back to the campsite, Meg (followed shortly by us) collapsed in a heap and slept soundly until morning. 😴