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Oh, Suilven! With one of the most spectacular profiles of any Scottish hill, this 731-metre Graham had been on my wishlist for years. Finally we'd booked a week in Assynt, and even better, good weather was forecast for the first few days. So, which route to take? The approaches from Glencanisp and Inverkirkaig both looked interesting, so we decided to link them (with a fairly lengthy road walk) to make a circuit. "I'd have started about two hours ago..." replied the warden at Inchnadamph Hostel when we left him a route card. But we hadn't wanted to miss the free breakfast!
Cloud was forecast to burn off through the day. so we started at Inverkirkaig and tackled the tarmac first.
River Kirkaig at the start - a fine river:
Inverkirkaig and Loch Kirkaig, with sheep and lambs grazing along the road verges:
The first 3km+ was all on a road, but it's a very scenic and fairly quiet one, winding through the rocky landscape scattered with houses. No great hardship at all then. View over Loch Culag:
At Loch Culag you can divert through Culag Woods, replacing the next kilometre of road walking with forest paths:
We explored the woodland more thoroughly later in the week - there are some very attractive spots - so I'll leave the rest of the photos for a later report. Emerging from the north end of the woods we passed through a quiet Lochinver:
Back onto tarmac for the trudge up to Glencanisp Lodge. After the first mile the track becomes unsurfaced, with the first great views of the day's target (right, with Canisp on the left):
There's a wee "honesty shop" at Glencanisp Lodge - tempting, but we thought we'd better crack on. A track covers the next few miles: easy going amidst pleasant surroundings, Suilven gradually getting closer. We detoured briefly to inspect Suileag Bothy, which became lunch stop no. 1.
After reading though some of the bothy book, a soggy path cut the corner back onto the Suilven track. A few holes were starting to appear in the cloud.
Canisp looking enticing:
Reaching the junction where the path branches off to climb Suilven, we were pleasantly surprised to be greeted with a newly constructed path. This led most of the way up to the two lochans at the foot of the steepest section of the ascent, no doubt a huge improvement on the boggy old route we could occasionally see off to the side.
Reaching the end of the improved section, there was only a short wetter section before the ground dried out as the gradient steepened. The path up onto the ridge has no difficulties and tremendous views - but they're even better from the ridge itself...!
Just... wow:
Having started our day with all the road walking, we got the summit to ourselves as everyone else was already descending. After drinking in the views, we returned along the ridge (which has a couple of very easy scrambles) to the bealach... this time turning right to descend. There's a clear path which is similar in steepness to the ascent path, but a bit looser with a little scree.
Suilven's summit dome from the base:
Ah yes, so there had to be a catch. Once onto flatter terrain the bog starts. It was never particularly terrible, but for the next few long miles along Fionn Loch you're never far from a wet bit. On the plus side, the views...:
But the path is (usually) clear:
Across the loch:
Suilven poking out at every opportunity:
More photos below...