Meallan in the Middle

[Pastychomper]

My nephew and occasional walking companion just returned from two years in Canada, so I thought a day tramping through snow might help him feel at home as well as taking my own winter walking up a notch or two. He'd spent some time in the Rockies and had his own ideas about walking wear, preferring light shoes and ice spikes to heavy boots and crampons. That worked surprisingly well but meant some step-cutting on the steeper sections.

Plan A was to park a little way north of Kinloch House and walk across to Meallan Liath* first, then cut across to Ben Hope before returning. If there was enough snow away from the mountain to slow us down, we'd switch to Plan B which involved parking at Dun Dornaigil and taking the "easy" way up Ben Hope.

The ground at road level was clear and nicely frosted, so we went for Plan A and made quick progress on the first section. An added benefit to was getting to try out our snow equipment on a smaller hill first - and away from the clag that soon formed on the larger hills. We parked at 7:30 and I spent a few minutes arranging my pack to my satisfaction.

The beginning

We planned to follow estate tracks to the foot of Meallan Liath but the first track disappeared at the first bend. We didn't try hard to find it, just headed for the hill.

Meallan Liath

All the way we had some great views of Ben Loyal

Sun over Ben Hiel, behind Ben Loyal as we crossed the Moine Path.

and back the way we came.

Kyle of Tongue

The east side of Meallan Liath had a good covering of snow, but plenty of rocks poking through so we took another short-cut straight up the side,

The lower end of ML

stopping to admire Ben Loyal on the way.

Ben Loyal, with its heads in the cloud

The first top was marvellously craggy, with some welcome ridges to shelter from the wind.

North from ML smaller peak

The wind was bracing from the east, so we went for the west side of the ridge after leaving the first summit. On the way across we passed some natural snowballs - clearly that's how things roll up here.

Snowballs

We passed a few others as we crossed the bealach. Aside from the obvious thoughts for anyone who'd recently been reading about avalanches, I was impressed by the neat rolls of snow so far from recent human influence. The hills were throwing snowballs for aeons before I ever heard of the idea.

You gotta roll with it

It was calm and peaceful out of the wind, with numerous snow-filled channels that all appeared to lead off cliffs, like a bobsleigh team's recurring nightmare. The snow was getting harder so on went the crampons/spikes.

higher peak of ML in front of Ben Hope

There were two more-or-less inviting channels to the second peak, the first and most direct looking a bit steep, given the amount of snow it held. After some deliberation we decided to risk it and stick to the edges, where some vegetation was visible under the snow. We admired the icicles on the way.

I want to ride my icicle... err...

The only hairy part was crossing a patch of clear snow that I could feel vibrating slightly with each footstep. I don't know if that's really a bad sign but several parts of my brain sent notes to say they'd really rather choose a different route in future.

Off to one side was a little coire with recent falls from its steep back, and more snowballs.

Coire on 601m peak

Once out of the channel, it was plain sailing onto the top.

On the up

There was a cairn to the south, and a boulder on what I thought was the highest point.

One-piece cairn

As before, the views were amazing.

Ben Loyal (and cairn)

Hope has got its hat on...

I couldn't get enough of the snowscapes, and my photography skills don't really do it justice.

Pan across the south

The way down

After a few minutes we headed down the gentle south slope, crossed the southwest ridge and entered the strath near Dubh-loch na Creige Riabhaich. All three lochs were frozen, with some impressive textures on the ice, and everything else in the valley was covered in a deep layer of snow and a deeper layer of profound silence. There was a distant rustle of wind to remind us there might be a world somewhere outside, but this scene could have come out of a good fantasy novel or, more likely, inspired one.

When you lose your cool, this is where it goes.

Bridge to Hope

On the way to the crossing between Loch na Seilg and Loch na' Ghobha-Dhuibh we came across two short sets of prints, each leading away from a small hole in the snow. Ptarmigans?

Snow tracks (contrast enhanced)

It had taken us until 1:00 to get this far, so we found a sheltered hole to cook our bacon. Handily it was big enough for both of us to stand in.

The kitchen

After lunch we started up Ben Hope. The forecast was for snow to start some time after 2pm, but not too heavy at first, and for now we could see almost to the top. The route took us nearly due west, tending slightly south at first to avoid any chance of straying into Coir' a' Ghallaich.

Zoom to a drift on the side of Ben Hope

The first section was a fairly unpleasant walk over piles of boulders with knee-deep snow in between, but the ground became clearer as we went up. Ben Hope's personal cloud tried to balance this by coming down to meet us, engulfing us just above 600m. The snow was softer at this level than it had been on the west of Meallan Liath, but hardened up a little higher. The wind was whipping across from the south, not too fast (forecast said 40mph at the top) but certainly enough to notice.

As the cloud thickened I started navigating by compass, following a series of rocks and bumps on a slight diagonal. All clues to scale gradually ran out, followed by the bumps, leaving just me and a circle of crisp, featureless snow - aside from the line of footprints leading back to Jordan a short way behind. This was my first time navigating in a complete white-out, and it was quite an experience. Not scary, because I knew we weren't near any sudden drops and was pretty sure I could tell where "up" was, but eerie and with no way to measure progress. I was glad the route ended with a straight line.

Actually there was one way to measure progress: shortly after the visible lumps ran out the slope became a lot steeper, meaning we'd reached the last stage before the summit plateau, about 800m. It also made the climb that much harder. The wind at this level was blowing hard from the east, as it had for most of the last fortnight, and providing spindrift and maybe some fresh snow. I wasn't leaving deep footprints any more but the going was heavy enough, not helped by having just done miles in soft snow.

Things weren't much better below. One of Jordan's sets of spikes had quietly popped off his shoe, making no difference at the time but causing an obvious difficulty on the steeper slope. Eventually we both agreed that, however close we were to the summit, it would be better to turn back. I can blame it on the missing spikes, but in truth I was happy to turn round, partly because the weather was deteriorating. I did get some crazy, fleeting notion of heading south and coming up the easy way, but we had miles of snow to cover as it was and that would have been asking for trouble.

I'd like to point out that we decided to play safe, it wasn't a case of losing my bottle on the hillside. Sadly the evidence says otherwise: my water bottle fell out of my pocket on the way down, and by the time I noticed it was too late.

We followed our footprints down. Mostly they looked fresh, but every now and then were two or three that were almost filled in, or closed up.

The cloud had almost reached the bottom of the mountain, and been joined by a lot of heavy-looking friends. Visibility was better though, and we avoided the worst of the boulders by an easy descent to the impressively lumpy shore of Loch na Seilg. That turned out to be a bad call - too much time and energy negotiating bumps and snowdrifts along the shore.

Once past the lochs we had a snowy trudge around the north of Meallan Liath.

Part of the way back (taken before the snow started)

It seemed a lot further this way, probably because we were facing into the wind and its small, stinging snowflakes. At least I remembered why I wear that wind-catching, wide-brimmed hat: it's very good at keeping snow off the eyes.

As we rounded the north end of Meallan Liath the light was waning, the going was uneven bog and we were keen to reach the estate track before dark. As soon as we reached a flattish area, Jordan (who was in the lead) surprised me by breaking into a run. I did my best to keep up, and we made the track with light and time to spare.

We got back in the car at 7:35. 12 hours on the nose, how's that for good planning?

This is at least the third time I've been beaten by a hill, but the first when I was navigating, so naturally I've been asking myself a few questions. Did I guess wrong about the amount of snow off the hill? Yes. Did I underestimate the final ascent? A little. Did I mis-navigate and hit the steepest part of that ascent? I'll probably never know (my camera recorded a GPS log but it was off by over 200m in places - the gpx below is hand-finished) but it doesn't vary much across that section. Should we have switched to a different route when we noticed the ice spikes were missing? Probably.

Should we have gone for Plan B? If we had, we'd have bagged Ben Hope but I doubt the trip would have been better. We had at least three great walks that day: across a crisp moor, over a fine hill that deserves more fame even if it doesn't count as a Marilyn, and through an amazing frozen strath. Plus I got some bonus navigating practise. We will both almost certainly bag Ben Hope one day, but if we'd missed Meallan Liath we might never have gone back for it, let alone in the snow.

*Not to be confused with Meallan Liath Coire Mhic Dhughaill - the walk wasn't that long!

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[Mal Grey]

A great, wild, place to visit by the looks of it. Thanks for sharing.

Shame about the missing spikes, but no shame in turning around.

[Pastychomper]

Thanks, glad you liked it.

The spikes were a cheap set bought as a stop-gap, so it was inconvenient but not a complete disaster - though I prefer not to leave such long-lasting "litter" behind. They got good reports while they lasted though.

[malky_c]

Very grey, but I like the look of this route . I had been looking at a variation of it before (taking the N ridge to the summit rather than your upper route, although probably not in those conditions). Good to see some photos from it, and a fairly epic-looking day as well.