Walkhighlands

During a welcome week’s break in Badachro in March 2008 Hazel and I drove the beautiful Assynt coastal road, the B869, between Lochinver and Kylesku. This road required a lot of thought and concentration so most of the scenery just passed us by until the mighty ‘Y’ shaped mountain mass of Quinag came closer into view and became immediately added to our ‘must climb list’. I had already planned a ‘lads hiking weekend’ for the May Bank Holiday of 2008 to climb Canisp, Suilven and Seana Bhraigh so any thoughts of me ‘tagging on’ Quinag were vetoed almost as immediately by ‘The Boss’!

So approximately a year later during a further welcome week’s break in Badachro, Tuesday 17th March 2009 to be precise, Hazel and I parked at the large parking area on the A894 between Loch Assynt and Kylesku (GR: 233274) where there is the beginning of a Stalkers Path. We followed the Stalkers Path, crossing the bridge over the Allt Sgiathaig then taking the left fork to begin climbing the broad ridge of Spidean Coinich. The ascent of Spidean Coinich was straight forward with much of the ascent bare rock and we arrived at the summit in approximately 2 hours, with fabulous views of Suilven all the way.



From Spidean Coinich we began the long traverse North over Point 713, then followed the twisting path down to the Bealach a' Chornaidh from where the path climbed to Point 745. The path dropped again to a col from where the ridge out to Sail Gorm was easily followed, we arrived at the summit in approximately 4 hours.



We reversed the route to the col below Point 745, but avoided the re-ascent to Point 745 by traversing it's northern flank and reached the ridge leading to Sail Gharbh, we arrived at the summit in approximately 5 hours. As tradition dictates the final summit of the day was toasted with a wee dram, in this case a fine 10 year old Macallan.

We continued along the Sail Gharbh ridge to end above the great cliffs, the finest feature of the mountain, before returning to the summit of Sail Gharbh and again avoiding the re-ascent to Point 745 by descending a traverse South East to the Bealach a' Chornaidh, where we reached a path which ultimately joined the Stalkers Path back to the large parking area on the A894. In total we where approximately 7 hours on the mountain.


A fantastic day's hiking with 5 summits, 3 of which are Corbetts, magnificent scenery, fabulous weather and topped off with fish and chips in Ullapool ..... it can't get much better than this!

Hang on ….. it did get better, we got back to Badachro with enough time to spare to head to ‘the local’ for a few well deserved ales.

Looks a great route - been wanting to do it for a while but never get that far up really... Is any of it exposed or horrifically steep? Your pics make it look okay... Great photos and report!

The route we took had no great difficulties or any real prolonged steep sections and the three main summits were gained relatively easily. There are other routes on the mountain which require climbing experience, but not this one. The mountain in fact was surprisingly green. When in the Bealach a' Chornaidh I would study the route off Sail Gharbh and the line of the path off the mountain.

Up there with the very best of the Corbetts - a stunner of a hill

Thanks for the report

That's a fine report Darran, on a hill I've still shamefully never climbed

One thing - unfortunately it breaks the OS's copyright to put a screen dump of one of their maps on like that (for the moment - this is set to change next year). As this can make them very cross, the legal way to put a walk map on is to upload your GPS track instead - which has the added advantage that other users can download the track as well as look at the map of your travels. Walkhighlands will automatically show the right bit of OS map with your route marked on (and it is zoomable to 1:25k too)

I'm guessing you have mapping software as the map you put on looks to be taken from some; to put the map back in, all you need do is export or save your track in .gpx format, and then add that to your post (edit it, and then use the 'Add photograph or map' tab at the bottom to upload your .gpx file). Ask if you get stuck!

And a big welcome to the site too.

Quinag is indeed a fine hill with little or no difficulty. The pub at Badachro is also one not to be missed: agroup of us watched the Rugby Union world Cup there when England were robbed against South Africa. We were the only 5 English supporters there, got some stick.
Nice route description and pictures.

Thanks for the encouragement folks... sounds okay then - that was the route I was planning to take more or less anyway...