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Sub 2k Marilyns: Sgribhis-bheinn.
Date: 25-27/08/2018.
Distance: 36km.
Ascent: 1000m.
Time: 10 hours.
Weather: Overcast with some sunshine. Wet on Sunday evening, otherwise only occasional showers.
A weekend that had been in the diary since April or May at least - this isn’t usually a good thing as it leaves the weather plenty of planning time to do its worst. In addition, there are other obstacles to getting to Kearvaig. Will the military be bombing or shooting things? Will the ferry be on? Will there be enough space in the minibus? Aside from the first of these, they wouldn’t be showstoppers but things could be made more awkward. Regardless, this was the only weekend Stuart could do, so we would definitely manage something!
By the time the bank holiday rolled round, we had expanded to 5 people, with Col, Ryan and Pete also coming along. They all headed up to my place on Friday evening via a couple of Drumochter Munros, and we were off for Durness at the crack of 6am the following morning.
We arrived in plenty of time to catch the first ferry , and fortunately there was enough minibus space for us, making this one of the easiest bothies ever to reach!
Looking across the Kyle from Keoldale 
Ferryman appears 
Approaching Kearvaig We were quite glad actually as we had overpacked, and the walk-in would’ve been tedious. But what a place! I had a nice quickie visit here last year but the other guys had never been this far north.
You have been warned!! After unpacking in the end room and having a look round the beach, we decided to walk to the lighthouse via the clifftop. First obstacle was the Kearvaig River, which almost took out Pete and Ryan
. Then it was easier walking round to the next bay, where there is another much inferior bothy.
Some entertainment crossing the Kearvaig River 
Kearvaig Bay and Stack Clo Kearvaig 
The bothy 
Hidden beaches to the west of Kearvaig 
Back to the stack 
Clais Charnach A short walk up the road took us to the lighthouse and cafe, where we had coffee and cake. The cafe is pretty basic, but if you go with low expectations it’s pretty good actually.
Cape Wrath lighthouse 
Foghorn 
Stac an Dunain After a quick wander round the headland, we walked back to the bothy along the road. Once over the bridge on the Kearvaig river, we took a faint path to shortcut to the bothy.
The bay again The rest of the afternoon was spent exploring the crags and boulders around the beach and trying to go for a swim. The number of jellyfish put me off going in any depth, but Col was braver and went for a full immersion
. Fortunately we had lit the fire back at the bothy in preparation for being absolutely freezing!
In the bay 
That’s as far as I’m going in 
Stack and cliffs 
Kearvaig bothy 
Outlook from the bothy 
What next? 
View from the top of the cliffs 
Bothy and bay 
Sea looks great The rest of the evening passed with occasional wanders outside to admire the scenery, chatting to the 4 or 5 other folk who were in other parts of the bothy and enjoying a few drinks. Later on we gave the mirrorball a good spin
Bothy fire 
Bothy mirrorball 
Moon rising Time for another wander the following day. The weather wasn’t as good, and was set to break later on, so we opted for a medium-length walk over the cliffs to the east of the bay and onto Sgribhis-bheinn.
Back to the cliffs 
Top of the cliffs 
Pete doing pressups 
Kearvaig Bay 
Cape Wrath 
Bothy and cape Although a little grey, the summit of Sgribhis-bheinn was a great viewpoint and a handy lunch stop. There was a lot of pinging and ringing as we came across phone signal, and a couple of the guys had to report in to their partners
.
Foinaven from Sgribhis-bheinn 
Ben Loyal and Ben Hope from Sgribhis-bheinn 
Durness and Whiten Head 
Approaching the summit of Sgribhis-bheinn 
Descending Sgribhis-bheinn A quick descent to the road took us back to the bothy for early afternoon. Col took another swim, but the rest of us left him to it this time. Then it started raining and a lazy afternoon turned into a relaxed evening
.
Back to the bay 
Beach 
You can take these guys out of Dundee, but unfortunately...! 
Col braves the jellyfish 
Direct hit! 
Beneath the cliffs 
Exploring a cave Well it was relaxing until we decided to end the night at the same time as Col invited all of the other bothy occupants into our room for a party!
However we didn’t feel too rough in the morning and were able to leave at 8:30 after a quick tidy-up. We decided to walk back to the ferry as it would be a bit nasty hanging around for the bus in the midges.
Leaving the bothy 
Faraid Head from Dail 
Kyle of Durness 
Kyle of Durness While the midges were bad, they didn’t hang around the slipway so the wait for the ferry was a nice relaxing end to the trip. We were back over at the car by 11:30.
Waiting for the ferry 
From Keoldale Ars the guys had a long journey home to Dundee, we didn’t hang around in Durness (missed out on Cocoa Mountain this time
), but we did take the scenic route down the west coast. Another fantastic visit to Kearvaig - but probably not the last
.
