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Increasingly, I spend an inordinate amount of time between Monday and Friday thinking about, planning and discussing walks for the weekend. This week, however, by clocking off time, at around 6.00pm on Friday, I had no plan. The weather forecast for Saturday was uninspiring. My usual hillwalking partner and his weeblackdug had their own plan. This involved camping....in February.....when it's cold......in a tent! Not for me!
I decided on the way home from work that I would pass on the walking this weekend. There were, after all, many other things I could be attending to - or so I had been told!
By 10pm I felt somewhat restless. By 11pm I decided to retire for the night but found that I could not sleep. By midnight my bag was packed and by half past midnight I was firing up the Land Rover, pulling out the drive and heading North.
A mere 6 hours and 260 miles later I was parking at the foot of Ben Hope.
Now I should, at this juncture, state a fact and give credit where it is due. A very handy thing for an attached hillwalker to have is an understanding and tolerant partner/spouse. Had the last minute notion to drive through the night to get a short walk done given rise to some adverse comment or opposition, I could not have complained. I possess, however, a spouse who fully appreciates the importance to me of this type of nonsense. One who demands no more than that a note be left detailing my whereabouts. I am grateful for this...... but then again maybe she's just glad to see the back of me. Now I'm wondering what she gets up to when I'm out on the hills!
Anyway, as I was saying, by 6.30am I was parked up at the small Ben Hope car park - situated about 2 miles beyond Alltnacaillich Farm in Strathmore. An immediate start was, however, out of the question. The wind was preposterous. The extent of the wind was such that I struggled to open the door of the car. This was not a series of strong gusts but a consistently strong wind which was threatening to turn the day into just a long drive.
I decided to wait an hour or so in the hope that the wind would abate. I tried to get 40 winks in the car. This proved impossible. The car was on the wrong end of what MWIS would describe as a "considerable buffeting". I was starting to consider the possibility of the a couple of tons of Land Rover being couped onto its side with me in it.
At 8.15am I got bored of waiting for the wind to abate and set off.
First things first and something that is often a tricky thing for me - finding the start of the path. On numerous occasions I have missed the start of a perfectly good path and ended up...........ah!, here it is.
The path up Ben Hope from this point is easy to follow. It's a bit soggy....well, a lot soggy at various parts but tolerable and not in the Premier League of bog trots.
The route is consistently steep. In its early stages the path runs parallel to the Allt a Mhuisell. This provides a good excuse to stop regularly and take snaps of its many wee waterfalls. I did not manage to catch the effect on my mobile phone camera but the wind was, on occasions, blowing the water back up the waterfalls.
Did I mention it was windy?...No. It was, from the start of the walk, very windy indeed. This was making progress slower than I had hoped. Towards the top of the hill and at the summit it was pretty tortuous going. I was doing my best not to get blown over the cliffs the wind was blowing towards.
It was starting to look like the fantastic views, which I understand to be available from the summit of this hill, were not to be mine today. The views around me on the way up were tolerable enough though.
The way down was the way up backwards. I was back at the car 3 hours after setting off - a wee bit longer than I thought it would take.
I'd had it in my mind that there would be plenty of time to do Ben Klibreck on the way home. There was plenty of time and the legs were fresh but I'd had enough of getting blown at for one day.
Ben Hope is a fine hill and an easy walk. The next time I can't sleep I will tag it on after Ben Klibreck and hopefully get the fine views from the summit.
On the return journey I did get to see the scenery I had missed in the darkness of the journey there. It's a nice part of the country and one I hope to explore in the near future. Here are a couple of pics from vicinity of Ben Hope. One of a pointy Broch thing and one of a hoose with no roof.
Another 6 hours and 260 miles later and I was home - in time for a social engagement that evening. A full day.
