free to be able to rate and comment on reports (as well as access 1:25000 mapping).
Date - Thu 6th & Fri 7th Oct 2011
Title - Camban Bothy [Kintail]
Route - From East of Cluanie Inn, N through glen (An Caorann Mor), passing Glen Affric YH, then W into Fionngleann to bothy.
Weather - Wet, improving on Friday
People - Me / Michelle
Time - 24 hrs (about 4hrs walking each day)
Distance - 27.4km (13.7km each way)
Ascent - 730m (Day 1: 400m, Day 2: 330m)
Max Altitude - 430m
[socialhiking]http://www.shareyouradventure.com/map/os/HighlandScott/Camban-Bothy-Route-274km-67-Oct-11[/socialhiking]
We'd originally planned to stop at Camban Bothy along with Mountainstar and co back in Sep during the WH Meet in Kintail but couldn't make it in the end. The original plan had also been to take a high level route to get there over A' Chralaig & Mullach Fraoch-choire, a fine pair of hills that I've
done before and Michelle was looking forward to scrambling on, but a crap weather forecast soon had that plan scrapped and we stayed lower down in the glens this time.
An extremely lazy start in Inverness including a full breakfast saw us finally booted up and walking just after 3pm. We thought there was a chance we'd arrive at the bothy in the dark - in the end we did put the headtorches on 15 mins from arrival.
Started just each of the Cluanie Inn.
Lots of rain had the rivers going strong - wondered if it'd cause us any problems later on but only one crossing required real though which we made fine. Certainly wouldn't be taking any shortcuts as we got closer to the River Affric.
The track itself was doing a fine job at becoming a river. Combined with boggy ground later on we finished the day with feet soaked to the bone
After slogging in the rain we reached the end of the glen (An Caorann Mor) and caught sight of the bothy in the distance - thoughts of the fire we'd soon have put provided renewed enthusiasm which was needed considering we'd now be heading the other direction for a little while in search of the bridge to cross the river near Glen Affric YH.
Zoomed in on the bothy
Plane wreckage. Anyone know the story of it?
Descending to the bridge
Picture doesn't quite do the river justice - what a roar it had
We were well soaked by now but glad to be on a decent track closing in fast on the bothy
Another crossing yet though, the bridge (what's left of it) across the white water rapids
Darkness came on rapidly - 20 mins after the last bridge we got the headtorches on for the last little bit
Arrived at the bothy, as suspected being midweek we were the only people there. Camban is a decent bothy having been renovated with a new roof and good sleeping platforms over 2 rooms both with fireplaces. Got ourselves sorted out, collected some water (plenty about today!!) and got dinner on, but not before sorting out the most important thing.......
The nights entertainment was provided by a nice single malt...
And a laugh at some entries in the bothy book.... (thankfully we had no real problems with midges on our trip)
We wrote in the book and Michelle summarised things in picture form....
Slept quite well with the fire burning into the small hours. No rush in the morning - spent a couple of hours having breakfast and lounging around, finally departing about 11am.
Having suffered showers most of the previous day things evened out a bit and we began our return journey in patchy sunshine. It did cloud over a bit but the main thing is it didn't rain today.
Beinn Fhada (Ben Attow) behind the bothy
Looking back down the track leaving the bothy
Ciste Dhubh (left)
River Affric E into Glen Affric
River Affric SW toward bothy
Deer looking down on us from Mullach Fraoch-choire
Walking under the rainbow
Our route S back through An Caorann Mor
Snow capped Sgurr nan Ceathreamhnan
Mullach Fraoch-choire
Ciste Dhubh
Ciste Dhubh
Me - knackered but nearly out the Glen and into the Cluanie Inn!
Final push down to the car by the loch, looking across to the South Glen Shiel Ridge.
A great trip
Our first proper outing with big packs weighed down with coal and supplies - can't wait to do it again