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By rights Maol Chean-Dearg should have been Number Three, but a hiccup on Sgorr Ruadh a couple of days before, which I will come back to in my next post, stopped me just a few metres from the summit. I had been concentrating on the Coire Lair area for a week or two, and needed a change of scene before coming back and confronting the demons.
This brought me to Maol Chean-Dearg. I had been up to the striking off point at the Bealach a’Choire Ghairbh a couple of times before as part of my conditioning regime. I had viewed the mountain from Sgorr Ruadh, and also watched two hill runners race up and down it. I thought I could do it and desperately needed a positive result to keep my motivation bubbling. It didn’t look a particularly pretty hill, not from the south-east anyway; just a solid no-nonsense lump of rock. It was just what I needed.
The weather had turned iffy, but it looked like there may be a five or six hour window of half-decent conditions on Monday 21st September: rain easing off, cloud lifting with perhaps some sunshine before showers later, not much wind. With only a twenty-minute drive from home to the Coulags car park, it seemed worth taking the chance.
I always like to be away early, with a full day ahead, morning porridge and tea still working their magic, a residue of night coolness to ease the first few miles, first walker on the track. By 0845 I was through the road gate and striding up the first section of path, over-trousers on to protect against the damp vegetation. Soon I’d added my waterproof jacket in the faint mizzle. The morning was still, the tops heavy with cloud.
The walk in from Coulags is gentle, open, a trifle bland until the bridge over the Fionn-abhainn and the bothy chimney-tops heave into view. The buttresses of Meall nan Ceapairean are now high to the left, but they run a poor second to the imposing cliffs of Fuar Tholl in the adjacent coire.
Within the hour I was past the bothy and at the cairn marking the turn up to the bealach. The cloud was starting to lift, but Maol Chean-Dearg’s pate was still well shrouded. After a short stop, a mouthful of water, and divestment of the jacket, I was off again.
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- Maol Chean-Dearg photographed on the descent - clearing a little
It was only a few weeks since I had first toiled up the track here: the long, not particularly steep switchback. Then it had gone on forever, demanding frequent stops to gather strength and breath. Only sheer bloody-mindedness had got me to the bealach. Now I could feel the change in my strength and stamina; fifty minutes or so without a break, all at a steady pace, brought me to the top. It’s not much fun growing old, but once in a while one can entertain the happy delusion that the decline has been arrested.
I was sweating heavily, nonetheless, and once at the bealach the wind, although not strong, was cold enough to cut through my two layers. I put on my top fleece, ate an energy bar, swigged a bit more water, and looked up at the steep pitch that starts the real ascent.
Over the last few weeks I had started to learn an important lesson: don’t think about it; don’t dwell on it; just get on and do it. I took a couple of deep, calming breaths and attacked the path. It was an awkward, steep, loosely-packed, slippery, confidence-sapping snake up through the rock, and I just forced myself on and up. I had no idea how I was going to get back down. Logic told me that thousands of people had managed it before, and there was therefore no reason why I couldn’t. In any case, I would meet that problem when I came to it. For the moment all I had to do was to keep going; to concentrate on the here and now, the next few feet of track, nothing more.
It went on for thirty minutes or so, with a couple of minor scrambles near the top, before I was through onto flatter terrain. The path across the rock-scattered earth was easy to follow. A short break in the cloud gave a glimpse along the west side of the ridge, with a hint of the summit bathed in sunshine for just a second or two.
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- A hint of the summit bathed in sunshine
The cloud closed in again, and the ground steepened into scree. I picked my way up through the rock, sometimes finding hints of the track, sometimes losing it. Near the top I looked up to see a ptarmigan staring down at me from no more than twenty feet away. It looked as startled as I was, and just as inquisitive. I could see every detail of its snow-white under parts, its red-lined eye and its silver-grey upper plumage, dappled with marvellous subtlety to match the surrounding rock. For a second or two we stared at each other, mutually uncomprehending. There was no doubt that I was the clumsy intruder into the ptarmigan’s domain. By the time I had organised my phone to photograph it, the bird had flown off.
Another flat section along the ridge dropped down into a narrow gully. On the other side was what I felt sure must be the final pitch before the summit, a steepish slope of big sandstone boulders. It was impossible to discern any sort of track, so I just attacked it head on. By now my legs were complaining furiously, but I was too close to the top to pay much attention. I fought my up to the brow and hauled myself over the top.
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- The perfect moment for the cloud to thin
It was the perfect moment for the cloud to thin, revealing the cairn a hundred metres or so away. By the time I reached it a break in the cloud had uncovered much of the surrounding panorama, in particular the great domed monolith of An Ruadh-Stac to the south, while to the north Loch Torridon pierced a mass of moody cloud.
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- An-Ruadh Stac to the south
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- Loch Torridon to the north
I placed a rock on the cairn and settled into the lee of the structure to eat my lunch. The ascent had taken about three and a half hours.
I was of course elated; in just a few hours I had doubled my Munro tally. Just one dark shadow tempered the moment: I still had to get down.
Keen to get on in case the weather deteriorated as forecast, I started the descent. I could now see the ridge clearly, and the track along the flatter sections, so had a good idea of the direction to head in. In any case, with a steady wind from the south-west, I just had to keep it on my right cheek to maintain my course: I was heading down the ridge on starboard tack, wind just slightly forward of the beam. It felt supremely good to be once again navigating by the feel of the wind on my cheek.
I started slowly and awkwardly down the sandstone boulders, and found that in fact there was a grass track to the right, looking from the top, that I had missed on the way up. This soon petered out and I traversed across the boulders towards a cairn near the bottom of the scree. A quick search along the gully found the exit path over on the left hand side.
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- Better views of An Ruadh Stac and the hills behind on the way down
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- Sgorr Ruadh reveals a shoulder
It was an easy matter to traverse the rest of the ridge, bringing me to the final steep pitch back to the bealach. Was it as bad as I had feared? Probably not, but I made my way down with tortuous care, every foot placement a considered move, every handhold checked for firmness. On the steep loose grit it seemed it would be an easy matter to have a foot slide away. The descent probably took longer than the ascent, but that did not bother me. I now had all the time in the world. All that mattered was to get down without mishap and without any dent to my confidence.
As I strode happily down the stalkers’ path, stopping once in a while to chat with the four or five walkers making their way up, I reflected on this business of confidence. In my own area of real expertise, ocean sailing, too much can be dangerous, too little can be debilitating. It seems that much the same goes for the mountain. It is a matter of finding that happy middle-ground of feeling supremely at ease, while remaining alert and respectful. I realised that as far as the hill is concerned, I have a long, long way to go to find that balance. It can only come with the accrual of experience, skill and familiarity born out of deep-seated respect. It is an interesting challenge to see whether, for a virtual novice at an advanced age, it is possible to make any significant progress along that particular road.
