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I had been following the weather closely all week as I had Saturday or Sunday free for a hill walk and my verdict was the West Coast would be the best. I chose the Saturday as I wanted to spend the day on Sunday chilling before a busy week at work.
Torridon was my choice and I wanted to make the long drive count by getting a couple of hills done. Therefore Beinn Liath Mhor & Sgorr Ruadh with the option to add on the Corbett Fuar Tholl was chosen whether they liked it or not.
I was close to giving the hills a miss as I was just not feeling it when my alarm went off at 4.45am but the thought of seeing other peoples reports and me wittering a weekend away when I had a pass for both days made me get my ar*e in gear.
The usual rammy took place downstairs when the Spaniels realised they were getting the hills too; I swiftly loaded gear into the car and hit the road. Again the weather was horrendous from Aberdeen all the way past Achnasheen but things looked up for my hills on arrival at the small layby on the South of the single track A890.
I got booted up and took the rough track up past the red phone box to Achnashellach Station.
- Coming to the Railway crossing
We crossed the tracks and took the right uphill and them you come to a choice of roads, the sign indicate you take a left to Coire Lair through some forestry. Soon the fine Corbett of Fuar Tholl comes into view, wow it looked great, I hoped I would get time for it.
- First sight of Fuar Tholl from Forestry track
- Turn left here for Coire Lair
Follow the forestry track to another wee cairn and take a left indicated by a small sign and head through a gate. The path runs along the side of the Allt an Leth-chreig for a while before branching right away from the steep ravine below Fuar Tholl. The path is good all the way up to a reasonable sized cairn where we branched right again to begin the climb up to the 800m Cairn and the beginning of the ridge along to Beinn Liath Mhor. The walk up into the Coire Liath would be a lovely walk in itself but I had a Munro to get to.
- Beinn Liath Mhor Ridge
- Take a right at this cairn to the start of steep ascent to 800m Cairn
- Sun shining on us on ascent
- Sgorr Ruadh with mist
- 800m cairn
- The route ahead, curving right to left
- The route ahead, Broken Spectre conditions
The walk along the ridge was brilliant, the North side of the ridge was full of mist and the sun was shining from the south, would I get my first brocken Spectre?? The answer was yes and it was awesome, it is a strange feeling, I had kind of forgotten about looking for one and out of the corner of my eye I saw this dark figure. I stopped and took a number of photos.
- First Brocken Spectre
- Looking ahead to Summit Beinn Liath Mhor
- Another Brocken Spectre
- Looking back it looked like the North side of the ridge is on fire
Ahead I saw someone standing on the summit cairn of Beinn Liath Mhor so I knew it was not far away. On reaching it they were gone and I would spend the whole day just one step behind. Summit views over to the Corbett Sgorr nan Lochan Uaine were excellent, on a summer’s day this could be included in your day with a nice walk over the rocky causeway between the twin lochs. Unfortunately Liathach and Beinn Eighe were shrouded in mist.
- The Corbett Sgorr nan Lochan Uaine with the natural causeway between the twin lochs
- Summit dogs
- Route over to Sgorr Ruadh
I met a guy from Inverness on the drop down from Beinn Liath Mhor whom had come up the Coire Lair to do just the one Munro, had a wee chat about the Black Friday mayhem that we’d seen on the TV then we were both on our way.
We walked over some slabs of rock before you drop down quite steeply to a nice wee loch where the dogs had a wee swim before you curve round a hump then drop down to another wee loch where they had a few more lengths. This section may be tricky in mist but luckily the mist was above 800m today. However the weather looked to be closing in and I wondered if I’d get views from Sgurr Ruadh that I had from the previous summit.
- View from between two Munros back down the Coire Lair
We started the up climb to the final Munro, the ground was really rocky and I was hoping the dog’s pads would be ok, this is one of the longest walks they have done on constant rock.
- Hurry up!!
- An Ruadh-Stac (left) Maol Chean-dearg (Right)
- Taster of the rocky terrain
On reaching the summit the clag had worsened and no views. Luckily I got views over to Maol Chean-dearg and An Ruadh-Stac on the way up before the mist; I cannot wait to do these two mountains, maybe in a springtime trip.
- Dogs beating me to the summit (again)
- Summit Dogs
The terrain off Sgorr Mhor was my idea of hell, rocky/grassy terrain which was reasonably steep; I really need to ask Santa for some walking poles. I had struggled with the down climbs all day and this dramatically added to my time, meaning the Corbett Fuar Tholl was ruled out as I did not want to run out of light. It would make a nice walk on its own someday. The ground between the feet of the two mountains was full of wee lochs and a range of sizes of boulders which we had to pick our way through before reaching the path below Fuar Tholl, which would lead us back to the Coire Lair.
- Fuar Tholl from Allt a'Bhealaich Mhoir
The soles of my feet were really starting to get sore now with walking on rock all day and I could not wait to get to the path. Eventually the path was reached and we walked till we met the path we took up before branching right to the foot of the Beinn Liath Mhor ridge. It was then an easy enough saunter back to the car by which time it was starting to get dark. Another wonderful day, I was disappointed I never got the Corbett but I cannot be too greedy, it will still be there for me in the future. In weather terms this really was a day of two halves, Beinn Liath Mhor 1 – 0 Sgorr Ruadh.
The dogs pads held out although Roy’s were a bit tender the day after, as were the soles of my feet, nothing a good day of lazing about could not fix……