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Corbetts: Clisham
Grahams: Uisgneabhal Mor.
Date: 14/08/2013.
Distance: 16 km.
Ascent: 1600m.
Time taken: 5 hours 20 minutes.
Weather: Cloud down to 100m, rain and occasional gusts.
Yet another work-related trip out west, and I could see the perfect opportunity to do the rest of the high Harris hills.Mind you, having recently looked through a series of reports by Kinley and Johnkaysleftleg, I was starting to think about other hills I could go up instead, especially if the weather was poor.
Things really weren't looking too bad as I departed from my day's work at Carloway, but rain began hitting the windscreen soon after. I always wondered about the rather odd separation of Lewis and Harris - it doesn't happen at the most obvious point. I understood when the rain increased to a downpour as soon as I got to Ardvourlie - the distinction is weather based rather than geographical (even if the two are connected to some extent). This was exactly what happened last time I crossed into Harris!
I was parked at the post box in Bun Abhainn Eadara at 4:20 pm, and off shortly afterwards. The weather really wasn't inspiring, but it wasn't exactly cold either. I had decided on dropping down to the west coast that I may as well plough on with my original plan, as the cloud was so low that I wasn't going to get views from any hills, however small.
Within 5 minutes I was away from paths and into the clag. There was a lot of long wet grass lower down, but it was standard heather and tussocks higher up - not particularly hard walking.
Bun Abhainn Edara:
Vaguely in the direction of Clisham:
I worked my way up onto Brunabhal, then down slightly to Loch Brunabhal. At the head of the loch, it was easy to get onto the S ridge of Uisgneabhal Mor, which wasn't as steep as it looked on the map. At least I wasn't the only one getting wet.
Wet Sheep:
The ridge looked like it would be really nice in better conditions, but there was little to see today. I was on the summit about 90 minutes after leaving the car.
Wet summit of Uisghneabhal Mor:
I nearly took the wrong ridge down towards Teileasbhal, as it wasn't particularly obvious on the summit. This was almost identical to the mistake I made on Oireabhal in June. Fortunately I corrected it this time and went off the right side of the hill. I was going to go up Teileasbhal as well (might have added 20 minutes to the walk) but I didn't see much point. Instead, I dropped down through boulders into Lag Glas, and followed the burn most of the way to Loch Sgail. Despite being back down to about 200m, I could still see very little.
Loch Sgail:
There was also little going for Mulla fo Thuath in the clag, so i took a line towards the col between it and Mulla-Fo Dheas. After a break low down, I hit steeper ground, then had to weave between crags and short scrambly sections. The up seemed to go on forever, and I managed to roll a couple of large boulders back down the hill. Fortunately, there was no-one else around. I had come slightly further south than I intended, and landed right on the summit of Mulla-Fo Dheas.
Next was the best section of the walk - a narrow rocky traverse to Clisham. A lot of the gneiss was still quite grippy in the wet, but there were some large sections of mossy rock that needed care. Despite the weather, I really enjoyed this bit of the route, and it was why I'd wanted to avoid a quick up-and-down of Clisham.
The ridge between Mulla-Fo Dheas and Clisham - good fun!
I arrived on Clisham at 8:15pm. Any vague hope that the weather would clear up was long gone! When packing the car the previous evening, I'd even included everything I needed for a high camp. Optimistic
Not the view I was after:
Clisham summit shelter:
The start of my descent route was shared with the main path up - this was almost as wide as the paths on some of the less visited Munros. To be honest, I switched off and didn't make much effort to check the route back to Bun Abhainn Eadara, and before I knew it I'd popped out on the road about 3 miles from the car. Oops!
Maraig has a new water supply now; you can take a dump if you want
Actually this was probably for the best, as the light was going and my planned route would still have had me tramping around in bogs in the gloom. The rain worsened, but walking was speedy, partly along old sections of single track road. The journey up the length of Harris and Lewis must have been quite a trek before the early 90s.
At the top of the last descent into Bun Abhainn Eadara I got a lift from a friendly guy called Mike, who didn't seem to mind me filling his car with water. He even took me a short distance out of his way to drop me right at the car. It maybe only saved 15 minutes but it was very welcome
.
I had still planned to camp somewhere by the car, but now I went for plan B. The hire car I had been given was massive, so I drove round to Luskentyre and slept in the boot. Sadly the clag was still down the following morning, so the views of this amazing beach were fairly limited. In fact between the mist and the condensation I'd filled the car with, I could barely see where I was driving for the first 10 miles. I was headed for another site visit on the Tolsta road, and the usual weather thing happened, with the sun coming out as I passed back onto Lewis.
Probably the most uninspiring photo ever taken at Luskentyre:
Still, at least I could say I had had consistent weather for the Harris hills (wasn't great in June either). And more to the point, any visit to the Western Isles is a good one, and it just made me keener to plan the next visit
