free to be able to rate and comment on reports (as well as access 1:25000 mapping).
it needs a little introduction.
last weekend was my birthday weekend and we booked few days off to go hillwalking. but as we all know, forecast for western / northern scotland was bad and after all i ended up with a plan of having a 1 day trip to glencoe as soon as the rain stops. that was on friday.
saturday morning we woke up, had a breakfast, started planning our usual 'saturday activities' -cleaning, shopping etc.. and then my partner said 'i saw the forecast for the hebrides an it wasnt too bad'.. we went to check again. yeah, it wasnt too bad. so i decided to have a look at the calmac website to check the ferries, then we would just go on sunday (and back on wednesday). unfortunatelly ferries run: from oban 3pm, ullapool 6pm. going on sunday, loosing a day, having only 2.5 days and paying so much for the ferry...
it was a quick decision: we had to go on saturday! there was no chance to catch ferry in oban (i am based in edinburgh), but there still was a chance to get to ullapool on time! it was exactly 11.07am as we decided to go, packed within 40 mins and left to ullapool !!!!! thanks goodness roads werent busy and we made it! the thing was that we had no place to sleep (took tent just in case) and had no plan and didnt really know what to see and where hahaha but as long as we manage to catch a ferry we will figure out stuff later
so clisham was the day 2 of our trip to outer hebrides.
after spending the first day on a flat lewis we were eager to move south to nth harris and do some hillwalking. luckily the weather forecast was still 'dry', we got tempted.... the goal - climb CLISHAM, the highest mountain on the hebrides.
as we arrived to tarbet on sunday afternoon, everything was closed, not a soul in the village, cash machine empty (such a hopeless feelling).. we had no map of the area and werent sure which route up clisham we should take. the were deciding between 2 options -tackle it from south (from loch na liste) that should be easy enough without a map... unless we get lucky and shops open on monday morning, tourist information with a good selection of maps and books about walking on harris... yeah!
we managed to buy some maps therfore the options changed and now we looked at doing the whole horseshoe, 5 summits in total.
most of the walk we followed route advised by
cicerone book 'walking on harris and lewis', (which seems to be the same route described on WH) but we modified the descent from clisham and way back to the car - instead of walking via tomnabhal, we cut straight east to the road and planned to hitchhike back to the place where we left the car. good luck!
and we left the car here
parking with a view, parikng bay just above the bridge in ardvourie.
the walk begins just at the bridge. starts with a faint path which is on and off, basicaly we followed the stream until we reached the loch.
first views of the day werent too promising, to be honest it all looked just a little bit like on the moon - rugged, brown dry heather, some yellowish grass, grey rocks, grey clouds.. dull...
way up gleann sgaladail, along abhainn sgaladail untill reaching loch mhisteam is wet, boggy, tiresome, boring.. longggggg (2hrs)... as probably always is negotiating boulderfield.. at the end we finally got some views to clisham and looked forward to climbing our first summit of the day - mullach an langa.
clisham
way up mullach an langa. it is a steep, pathless climb, first on a wet, boggy grass, later changing to large slabs just before the summit. easy but rather unpleasant
finally we reached the summit of mullach an langa (1hr)
and here's what we saw - our ridge walk to clisham. in total those are 5 summits, i think reaching the first one, mullach an langa is the hardest work.
the ridge
summit no 2 - mulla bho truath
and looking back to mullach an langa
the next is mulla bho dheas. i liked this one. ascent involves easy and very enjoyable scrambling along the ridge. route finding was very easy as there was a pretty well defined path along the ridge.
the mighty neighbours - uisgneabhal mor & teileasbhal
looking south to loch a siar
i was a little bit disappointed with the quality of the views. dont get me wrong - views were awesome, but i hoped for some sunshine and amazing pics..well, here's my excuse to come back there...
the only sunny moment we encounted i managed to take the picture of the clisham, and the sun was gone..
having a wee break at mulla bho dheas, getting heady for a final push
FINAL
PUSH!?!?!?!?
mr clisham again
hebridean meerkat
views to loch a siar again
ascent from mulla bho dheas involved some scrambling again. it had a tricky point, where you scramble down along the main ridge and at one point you just face a rock drop. at this point you have to retreat back and get to the faint path which goes a little lower (north side of the ridge), then just follow tha path (via wee summit of an t-isean) to the foot of clisham.
final ascent, clisham, is an easy one. it consists of 2 parts - first you walk up a gentle 'belly' (which is actually 2/3 of the whole ascent) and then final climb on the slabs again.
she's not there yet, she's not happy!
summit ridge of clisham is just a long pile of large rocks. dont be tempted to walk to the very edge (north edge) as you'll be facing quite a drop and it might make you misjudge what awaits ahead - descent (which in fairness is quite easy, thou steep)
summit cairn
as i mentioned before, i modified the return route a little bit, instead heading down towards tomnabhal, we descended straight down towards the road. at first we followed faint path, then we took direction in between a 'fork' of 2 streams and headed back to the car park (the one with picnic tables).
clisham from 'almost there'
we were exhausted, that's why we decided to cut the descent. i thought that it will be easier and quicker to walk along the road than wading thru boggy boulderfield again.. and we got an idea -to try to hitchhike back to the place where we left the car. problem was that time (6pm) wasnt the busiest on the road and during half an hour walk only 2 cars passed...
after about 30 mins we got lucky and the red renault megane stopped! many thanks to KRISTY / CHRISTY, crazy- happy girl from national trust for scotland who just moved to the hebrides 3 weeks before.. thanks for saving our lives and also saving us another 1 hr of walk! CHEERS!
enjoy!!!
