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I had been watching the weather forecast for a couple of weeks, hoping for a window before the snow came. Due to the short days, the plan was to climb a single Munro and enjoy a fairly easy day’s walking. This time, me (the slow), a friend and two fast Border Collies (Meg and Mudd). The day we chose fit all the criteria – reasonable temperature (around 6°C), not too much cloud cover and no snow.
We drove to the start point the night before to get an early start, but ended up chatting far too late into the evening and consequently, didn’t start walking the following day until 08:40!
- Looking ahead to the day’s walk from close to the starting point.
There is a good track virtually all the way, except for about the last km. The first 4km or so, being only a gradual incline.
- Looking north along the river.
The dogs were having a great time together, enjoying all the things that dogs enjoy – being in all the muck to be found, sniffing and rolling in anything disgusting, etc.!
- Meg and Mudd in the river.
The path is clear, with very few boggy patches, and follows the river (Fionn abhainn) for about 4km before turning west to head up to Bealach a’ Choire Ghaibh.
- The path, just before it turns to head uphill to Bealach a’ Choire Ghaibh.
Just under a km before the path heads uphill there is a bothy; we tried to look inside but couldn’t get in - we weren’t sure if the door was locked or just really stiff…
- Looking north-east from the path up to Bealach a’ Choire Ghaibh.
The path up to the bealach is less distinct in parts than lower down but still easy enough to follow.
- From the bealach, looking south-west at An Ruadh-stac (a Corbett).
Next, the track zig-zags up through scree; it was easy enough to follow and fairly short-lived, but still not pleasant (walking on scree rarely is).
Once above the scree, the path becomes fractured and disappears almost entirely after a few metres.
- Looking north-east from just before the final approach to Maol Chean-dearg.
The final half a km or so is firstly over rock and grass, followed by a clamber over medium-large rocks (about 100m in height). The wind had picked up by this point and with many of the rocks being unstable, it made the going slow and not very pleasant; even the dogs didn’t seem that keen.
- Looking towards Kishorn from the summit.
It was cold and windy on the summit (est. 2°C), but the views were reasonable (some low cloud) and there’s a very large cairn with several alcoves around the edge – just right for a lunch spot, sheltered from the worst of the wind.
- Looking back towards An Ruadh-stac from the summit.
Visibility continued to be clear on the descent, and there looked to be an easier route over the rocky section, a little east of the WH route – there was a very small lochan, not much more than a pond really (not shown on the OS map), which we headed for and then turned south-west to re-join the WH route. This turned out to be quite a bit easier than the ascent.
The next part, back down the scree path to the bealach, was harder than going up had been.
- Looking back at the scree path.
By now it was clear that we would be walking part of the return leg in the dark – it was about 15:00.
- Looking down to the bealach from the scree path.
When we reached the section where the path turned south to follow the river, the light was starting to fade, and we decided to try and pick up the pace a little. That went well for a while and I was just congratulating myself for being able to walk faster, without feeling overly tired, when I tripped on something and ended in a heap at the side of the track, having bruised and scrapped myself down my right side. However, no real damage was done, but I decided it must be time for the head torch!
A little further along, just after crossing the river, my left ankle gave way (another reminder that I need to do some strengthening exercises!) and I fell for a second time
. This time I had twisted the ankle and that put an end to any ideas of a faster return time.
And so, hobbling back to the van in the dark (again), we arrived at 17:45.
There was a surprising amount of traffic on the main road and even the few short metres we had to walk on it were hazardous, especially crossing the bridge, with the dogs, the dark and my dodgy ankle.
All in all though, it had been a good day.
