Slioch, cracking hill but long walk
Posted: Mon Jul 16, 2012 10:27 pmAnother lovely day in Torridon at the end of last week. Forecast of a few showers was bang on but most of the walk was in sunshine. So, went en famille from incheril start point believing that it was a great hill but just a slog in and out. Point 1 of note, if you have a dog, keep it on a leash as the first couple of fields have sheep in them ! Point 2 the dog will not likely have a clue about the feral goats that reside on the hill, we met them at the top, nice change from deer and the previous day's stag on Beinn Eighe.
When reaching the gate after the walk in the right hand path takes you past waterfalls and so on, good place to refill water bottles and less boring than the left hand path which we came back on. Also likely less boggy on this side, we were lucky that it has been dry, much of the boggy approach was dried up and had cracks in the peat rather than squelch.
The walk up into the valley below the mountain and the ridge is also a bit of a slog and the path is very eroded in places but no real challenges, even for our wee one who is 5 years old. The first real challenge comes after the traverse up the hill to the lochan. This ascent section is no place for bad footwear or indeed a 5 year old unless with a firm hand grip or on shoulders. Path is worn and narrow here but at least you are going up quickly. The only real shame is that there are two false summits including one before the trig point and at first we could not see as far as the trig point until then mist and cloud lifted. When it was clear though the views are just out of this world. Kids celebrated wildly having pushed for almost five hours to get here. Wee girl believes she should get into world record book !
Another family and a couple headed off to do the ridge and come down from the end of the ridge, we headed down as did not have time left to do ridge. I did see the folks coming down having a wee bit of a struggle though, looked like the path over that side not in great shape and possibly eroded as well as steep. Hopefully one of them might post a report.
A special mention for the Torridon Inn, great food and service, will be back to do Beinn Alliginn when son is a little bit older.
When reaching the gate after the walk in the right hand path takes you past waterfalls and so on, good place to refill water bottles and less boring than the left hand path which we came back on. Also likely less boggy on this side, we were lucky that it has been dry, much of the boggy approach was dried up and had cracks in the peat rather than squelch.
The walk up into the valley below the mountain and the ridge is also a bit of a slog and the path is very eroded in places but no real challenges, even for our wee one who is 5 years old. The first real challenge comes after the traverse up the hill to the lochan. This ascent section is no place for bad footwear or indeed a 5 year old unless with a firm hand grip or on shoulders. Path is worn and narrow here but at least you are going up quickly. The only real shame is that there are two false summits including one before the trig point and at first we could not see as far as the trig point until then mist and cloud lifted. When it was clear though the views are just out of this world. Kids celebrated wildly having pushed for almost five hours to get here. Wee girl believes she should get into world record book !
Another family and a couple headed off to do the ridge and come down from the end of the ridge, we headed down as did not have time left to do ridge. I did see the folks coming down having a wee bit of a struggle though, looked like the path over that side not in great shape and possibly eroded as well as steep. Hopefully one of them might post a report.
A special mention for the Torridon Inn, great food and service, will be back to do Beinn Alliginn when son is a little bit older.