Lochcarron sub2000s: Bad a'Chreamha and An Sgurr

[gld73]

6 days earlier I was at the summit of a munro in t-shirt and shorts - how things change! This weekend I was working in Lochcarron on the friday and staying in the Lochcarron Hotel that night, with the intention of doing An Ruadh Stac, Fuar Tholl and/or Sgorr Ruadh on the Saturday. Those hills got increasingly white through Friday though, and work meant I only got 4hrs sleep. Having breakfast on Saturday morning, the clouds were right down and the munros and corbetts out of sight, so I decided to leave them for another time when the weather was better and I wasn't so tired.

No point going somewhere like that and not doing any walking though, and fortunately my local colleague had mentioned the 2 smaller local hills just outside the village, Bad a'Chreamha and An Sgurr, and shown me the start point for walking. It wasn't ideal that my Landranger OS map for Glen Carron stopped at the village and didn't cover the 2 hills, but they were cloud free and not too far from civilisation, so difficult to go too far wrong as I'd quickly end up in the sea or on a road whichever way I went wrong! A quick look at WalkHighlands over breakfast showed a 2014 Malky_C walk report starting at the same point, so I had a read of that and tried to remember the vague route when I set off (thanks Malky and others who do walk reports for these lesser frequented hills! ). My route was fairly similar, roughly shown here:

our_route.gpx Open full screen  NB: Walkhighlands is not responsible for the accuracy of gpx files in users posts

I parked near the Lochcarron Weavers shop, where there's a nearby sign pointing to the start of the grassy path up to the abandoned remains of Stromemeanach. Lots of friendly black sheep around this part of the walk, and further up I could see a crofter with a working sheep dog herding other sheep, so after leaving the grassy Stromemeanach path, I tried to take an ascent route up Bad a'Chreamha which didn't get in their way.

Stromemeanach ruins, with Fuar Tholl and Sgurr Ruadh just visible

Looking across Loch Carron. The sheep weren't easily panicked.

...in fact, they seemed keen to get in the photos. Probably have their own Instagram account.

The ascent was up easy enough terrain, steep in bits, some grass, some heather, some bracken. I wasn't following any path, but just heading up and the summit trig point soon came into view. Looking east to the hills I'd originally been planning, the tops were still in cloud and not looking as appealing as the almost-sunny Applecross corbetts. Skye was looking pretty changeable but decent too.

The terrain heading up Bad a'Chreamha

Summit in sight

Looking past Lochcarron to snow-topped Fuar Tholl and Sgurr Ruadh

...Over the sea, to Skye ...

Sgurr a’Chaorachain and Beinn Bhan, looking across Loch Kishorn

The next hill, An Sgurr

The direct line from the Bad a'Chreamha summit to the An Sgurr summit wasn't far, but had the obstacles of cliff faces, a wee hill inbetween and at least 1 fence that I could see. I backtracked along the summit ridge for a bit before descending. With hindsight, I should have backtracked a bit more! I thought I'd gone past the steepest part, but still found myself at the top of some worrying angles and having to zig and zag to find safe routes. When I looked back at my descent route I realised I'd made life difficult for myself, I could have just gone along another 100m or so and had a nicely angled slope down, short vegetation instead of steep rocks. It had been hard to see from the summit ridge, and the lack of map hadn't helped.

Difficult to see in this rubbish pic, but I came down the grassy/heathery diagonal bit from upper right to lower left in the centre of the photo. A bit stupid, looking back! Heading further east (left in this photo looking back at Bad a'Chreamha) before descending would have been a much better route.

But safely down, I went round the base of the wee hillock, got across the low fence, and headed up the easier terrain of An Sgurr. Again, not having a map, I just headed up.

The easy terrain of short vegetation and easily avoided rocks of An Sgurr

I remembered Malky's report mentioning a deer fence, and right enough, the more formidable fence appeared. The wiring wasn't very tight which made it hard to climb over easily, but there wasn't a stile anywhere in sight in either direction. It turned out to have bits that were almost like barbed wire in parts, as I discovered when I dropped down the other side, snagging my coat on one of the sharp bits and ripping a big hole in the outer material. Frustrating, but better than ripping a big hole in my skin I suppose!

Deer fence ... inconvenient!

Adding a new breathable vent to my jacket :(

Distracted by that, I just headed up to the high point directly above me, which had a little cairn but which i could see was a few metres lower than the actual summit slightly to the NW. I took a couple of photos as it was a nice enough viewpoint, then dropped back down to the wee lochan area and up to the summit. I went to get my camera out for the beautiful view over to Beinn Bhan ..... and couldn't find it. I remembered putting it in my jacket pocket at the little cairn, putting my gloves in afterwards, zipping up the pocket and heading off to the summit .... but now I just had the glove in it. I soon realised I must have put my camera into the ripped hole instead of the pocket next to it! Frantically trying to re-trace my exact steps, I ended up back at the little cairned top, finding my camera beside it. Phew!

Small cairn, but the actual summit beyond

The descent back down meant crossing the cursed deer fence again, but it was easy terrain after that. I went down the grassier slopes at this part, towards the edge of the forestry area, hopped through the boggy flat area, then just stuck to the nice grassy terrain towards the croft houses. Passed another ripped jacket on the way ....

Taking the grassy descent route towards the edge of the forestry

Another victim of the deer fence ....?

I ended up just walking right past the 2 houses and down the track to the tarmac road, where I turned right and walked the short distance back to the car.

Heading home through Lochcarron, the summits of Sgorr Ruadh et al were now out of cloud and it would probably have been a good walk up there too by early afternoon! A few cars were at the Coulags and Achnashellach Station parking areas. But I'd got a couple of nice marilyns done, so no regrets (asides from my coat), and I can come back for the others when I've had a better night's sleep and the clouds are definitely away!