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Sgurr na Stri from Camasunary bay (with video)

PostPosted: Sun Oct 21, 2018 9:32 pm
by Karl Brobakk
Do you really have to do the 24 km roundtrip from Sligachan to get to Sgurr na Stri? No...

I stayed at Camasunary bay bothy and hiked up to Sgurr na Stri after breakfast. If you do not want to stay at the bothy, then you can park your car at Kilmarie and hike over to Camasunary bay. The hike From Kilmarie to Camasunary bay is about one hour one way.

The hike up:
I went over to the river, and was hoping it would be possible to cross the river by jumping on boulders. I hiked up along the river until I got to the lake. I figured it was not reasonable to hike further North, and crossed the river here. I had an extra pair of boots with me so that worked out fine. After I had crossed the riverI hiked to the left and up the mountain. There was no trail here. With the elevation gain this made it hard, but not technical. I checked out the first peak and got a good look at the lake bellow, and then hiked over to where the trail from Sligachan would be. And it was easy to find it. Followed the trail to the summit of Sgurr na Stri. Great views, gotta love it.

The hike down:
I wanted to check out the "bad step" so I hiked down on the Western side after having backtracked for a little bit. I decending without a trail, which was not a problem. I can see how people who are not used to hiking off trail might not feel comfortable with such a decent, but I had no problem with heading down this way. There is a trail down at the bottom that you get onto after a while.

The bad step:
I was not sure what to expect, which made me even more interested in checking out the bad step. As you hike along the coast it gets quite steep and the trail takes you to a "make it or break it" section. I did not investigate the area further, but I would not rule out the possiblity of gaining a little bit of elevation and avoiding the bad step that way. Anyway, I wanted to conquer it so that was not an option for me.

So, what is the bad step? Well, the trail takes you to a slick face of the mountain where you hike on a crack. You make your way along this slim crack to get over to the other side. The crack is narrow at times and you really have to make sure you have good footing before you make your next move. If you make a bad step then you might very well fall, and you will end up in the ocean about 5 meters bellow you more or less. This section is very short, but by far the most difficult part of the hike. The average tourist might not want to cross the bad step, an adventurous hiker who is used to scrambling should be able to get to the other side, a climber will say that a rope would be a good idea, but will still get accross without a problem. After the bad step you follow the trail back to the bay where you cross the river again.

Use the linke bellow to check out my video from Sgurr na Stri if you are interested. Starting 4 minutes and 5 seconds into the video.