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Corbetts: Carn a' Choire Ghairbh.
Date: 25/02/2017.
Distance: 20km.
Ascent: 850m.
Time: 5 hours, 10 minutes.
Weather: Mild and breezy. Sunny spells and odd sleet shower.
It looked like a weekend to batten down the hatches and stay indoors, but as it got closer, a convenient window of clearer, less windy weather appeared to be opening up on Saturday afternoon. I left the house at midday with a couple of ideas in mind, and ended up in Glen Affric. It's a good year and a half since I was last here, and the estates have been busy with hydro schemes since then. A power cable was being installed in the verge of the road along the glen, making things particularly messy just now, but hopefully it should be complete in the next couple of months.
Left the car just after 1pm. The Affric was looking particularly full of water with all the snowmelt from the morning - fortunately I didn't really have any significant river crossings on my route.
River Affric:
Bridge isn't much use today:
I didn't have a particularly imaginative route plan for the day - I fancied seeing what the stalker's path up the NE flank of Carn a' Choire Ghairbh was like. So it was a picturesque stroll along the south side of Loch Affric enjoying the unexpected sunshine, until I reached what appeared to be a bird hide at the eastern end of Loch Affric.
Sgurr na Lapaich:
Sunshine and showers:
An Tudair and Loch Affric:
An Tudair and Mam Sodhail:
Bird hide and end of Loch Affric:
...and An Tudair:
The path was pretty obvious, but also quite wet. A lot of this was probably down to the preceding weather though. It made fairly light work of the ascent, with the views over to Mam Sodhail across the loch looking good the whole way up.
The path:
The path ended before the summit, marked with a cairn, and a shower of sleety snow came in here. It was a bit breezy, but nothing like as bad as the forecasts earlier in the week has suggested, so I didn't mind too much.
West along Glen Affric:
Tom Choinnich:
Views were a bit more limited at the summit cairn, but at least I wasn't in the cloud. I headed NE towards Carn Glas Iochdarach, which was a bit peaty at the low point.
Summit:
Mullach Fraoch Choire:
An Tudair and Sgurr na Lapaich:
Previously (when going in the opposite direction) I had found a nice easy route up here from Loch an Sguid. This time I decided to descend Na Cnapain and look for the stalker's path shown on the 1:50k map. I knew it would be pretty sketchy as my dad had come up this way a couple of times and told me it was rough.
Loch Affric and Loch Bheinn a' Mheadhoin:
The path was nowhere near as obvious as the one I had used to go up, but there was a faint trodden way dropping down to the Allt Garbh, although it was pretty rough. There are a couple of gates in the deer fences where they cross the route.
Last light on An Tudair:
Lonely gate:
Ideally I would have crossed the Allt Garbh and picked up a new hydro track on the far side, but it was pretty full of water. I reckoned there were a couple of possible crossing places, but not without wading and getting quite wet! Fortunately there was no need to cross as I could join the southern Loch Affric track on the same side as I was on. Even then there was the small outflow of Loch Salach a' Ghiubhais to get across, which was just slightly too wide to jump. I managed dry-shod eventually, and walked the last mile and a half back to the carpark, arriving before it got dark.
Allt Garbh looking quite full:
An enjoyable little outing, reminding me that I don't go up Glen Affric anywhere near enough.
