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On my first walking trip to Harris (I’d been before years ago when I was in the Army and living on Benbecula) I decided I liked the look of the Uisgnaval Mor (2405 feet) and Teilesval (2300 feet) ridge.
- My 2 are on the left...
Compared to the Uists, Harris gets a lot more low cloud and bad weather – probably because it’s more mountainous and, with the compass anomalies on many of the hills, it is best to wait for a clear day with a good forecast.
One such day presented itself so I set off from my B&B in Tarbert to the mouth of Glen Meavaig and parked the Sunny by the end of Loch Meavaig on the bend. From there I could see, in the far distance, the full length of the glen and where I would have to walk back from after the hills. It was a long way – about 6 miles of straightish glen track.
- From where the car was parked looking down the long return glen
As on Uist, on the hills there are generally no paths – at least until you get up onto the narrower bits of ridge where there is less choice of route. But invariably you have to begin by plodding up thick heather...
I headed up onto the loch speckled summit area of Braigh an Fhada and then northeast up onto Creag na Speireig where the ridge narrows up to Uisgnaval Mor. At this point a narrow path appeared through short grass (the heather had now ended) – I always find a path very encouraging!
The path up the ridge went quickly and I was soon on the summit and admiring the great views in all directions. There are great views across to Clisham (the only Corbett on the islands) and Mulla-fo-Dheas, its westerly ridge. Westwards there were great views to Oreval and Ullaval and, beyond them, Tirga Mor – my favourite mountain on Harris.
The descent north to the col and the ascent of Teilesval looked terrifically steep – both on the map and in reality – it was only 500 feet or so though and was okay, although a bit stony...
From the col, for some reason, I chose to go down below the right of the ridge to avoid a rock outcrop – if I’d gone left I would have been on very easy ground. I ended up on the quite steep south-east face of Teilesval amongst crags and gullies.
- Teilesval's southeast face
I picked a very steep grassy gully and headed back up onto the ridge. There were no further difficulties and I shortly reached the small craggy top of Teilesval. I found this the most spectacular of the range and it was again a great viewpoint.
From Teilesval I headed north along the summit ridge and then descended northwest down a very gentle slope curving round to the northeast to another short steep descent to a col.
- Looking back to Teilesval
From this col I could have descended northwest to Loch Stuladale which had a track from its far shore out to Glen Meavaig.
However, I decided I hadn’t yet had enough so headed steeply through heather up onto Stulaval.
I was glad I did! Behind Stulaval there is a superb long-distance glen track and past that the huge Loch Langavat which is around 10 miles long. The north side of the hill is a very steep and quite craggy escarpment but it would be possible to descend to the track and either walk miles to the main road on Lewis or in the opposite direction about 2 miles to the Glen Meavaig track. Although I was headed to the Glen Meavaig track I decided to take the shorter route down the narrow heathery northwest ridge, Creag Chleistir. There were many holes in the heather so it was definitely a case of watching your ankles.
As I reached the Glen track, I saw my first people of the day – a couple walking into the corrie of Loch Stuladale. I was delighted to see fellow walkers and gave them a big smile and said hello – they looked absolutely disgusted to have their peaceful day sullied by such behaviour and sullenly ignored me!
I continued on my way to where the small, grassy track reaches Loch Voshimid and its boathouse. At the boathouse the track turns into a landrover track for the next 6 miles. Although the track is more or less level and pretty straight, it wasn’t at all boring. There was a further loch, Scourst and it was opposite one of the most spectacular features of the Harris mountains – Sron Scourst – a huge vertical crag of around 700 feet!
On the other side of the glen was the long and beautiful ridge of Oreval and Ullaval...
The last 2 miles became a little more tedious so it was just best foot forward back to the car.
Last edited by mountain coward on Sun Jan 02, 2011 1:37 am, edited 1 time in total.
