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"Are you sure you really want to do that?" said the guard when I asked her to stop the train at Achnashellach. "There's nothing there".
I'd taken Fiona and the land rover back to Inverness. I'd planned just to walk back to Glenuaig. It was almost three o' clock but it was a beautiful day and I figured that the long evening would allow time for some hills. I dismounted on to the little mossy platform in the middle of the rhodedendrons. Puzzlingly, this tiny station had been kitted out with five bike racks and a big no-smoking notice in the little shelter. I couldn't help thinking that if I had to wait any time there, I could put up with a bit of cigarette smoke if it kept the midges down. Access to the station was along an unsurfaced track through some estate buildings.
I'd planned on walking in along a forest track on the south side of the Glen. Unfortunately there was no trace of the bridge marked on my (admittedly 25 years old) OS sheet. I could probably have got across if pursued by a lion but chose to trudge along the road to Craig. I was at the entertaining wire bridge at Pollan Buidhe by 5:00 and up at the Bealach Bearnais not long afterwards. The last time I was here, we ate a miserable lunch cowering behind a large boulder. This time however it was a fantastic softly lit summer evening. From the upper Bealach, Bidean a Choire Sheasgaich (or Cheesecake for short) - an unjustly neglected gem and a much more satisfying mountain than Lurg Mor, looked satisfyingly Matterhorn like.
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The east ridge of Choinnich has a beguiling narrow path which leads you up, revealing itself a little at a time, interspersed with short scrambles up small rock steps. Eventually the gradient eases up at a knobbly subsidiary top. The view back towards Skye in the evening light was stunning.
and the corrie dropped away abruptly down to the glen
Sgurr a Chaorachain looks no distance at all away but there is a steep descent. A path slightly off the ridge on the south side made short work of it. The rising ridge on the other side goes up in two steps and the top was reached quickly. A highlight here was Loch Monar - a satisfying caerulian blue in the evening sun.
It was getting late and I regretfully decided that I couldn't squeeze in Bidean an Eoin Dearg. I think Sir Hugh must have had a bad day on this one. It is a pleasing pointed peak, a good mile away from Chaorachainn with a decent reascent - so why isn't it a munro?. (cf. Beinn Tulaichean by Balquhidder).
The pleasant ridge of Sron na Frianich led gently back down to Glenuaig Lodge past the attractive Lochan Gaineamhach.
. The only minor drawback was the slog across the peat hags to the Lodge. If descending from here, it is a lot easier underfoot to cross the Glen adjacent to the old village, half a mile up the Glen.
