I travelled to the North West on a very wet Saturday afternoon. When I arrived I could see the hillside burns were in full spate. My plan for Sunday was to walk Baosbheinn but when I learned the rain had been heavier on the Friday night I changed my plan to Creag Rainich. My reason for the change was that there are two water crossings on Baosbheinn which could be impassable.

On Sunday morning the temperature was just above freezing and the snow line had dropped to around 400m. Despite the weather forecast of excellent visibility I did not have any summit views as the mist rolled in. On my walk back out walking on the track along Loch a Bhraoin the sun was out and the snowline had risen further up the hills.

Even though Monday’s planned walk of Sail Mhor could involve crossing the Ardessie Burn it could be avoided by going up on the west side of the burn. My only problem was that on the morning the weather forecast had fog arriving in at 11am. My plan was to finish the walk by 4pm as I had a 4.5 hour drive back home. At 11 am I hoped to be approaching the summit and I feared that yet again I would have no summit views.

On my drive around the coast from Gairloch I saw three estate workers getting ready to head off for some stalking. I stopped to let them know my planned walk for the day and to check that I would not be causing any issues with their plans and all was good.

I arrived at the parking layby next to the Scottish Water building and I walked towards the bridge on the A832 to check the flow of water on the low waterfall and there was a healthy flow leading me to believe that the burn further up the hill might be in spate. I retraced my steps back to the layby and onto a path created by Scottish Water. There were some posts along the path advising not to use this path for views of the waterfalls. Just shortly before the second post which is next to a larger boulder, I found a trace of a track on the left that made a direct line towards the waterfalls.





It was a bit boggy but good enough to follow. Soon I was alongside the burn and had some views of the waterfalls.





Eventually the track I was on lead to the Scottish Water path but this wasn’t for long as it was shortly before the raw water intake. Again it was easy to follow the track made by others. There were some good views of the gorge that followed before the track veered away from the gorge and headed more direct towards Sail Mhor.



Heading towards Sail Mhor I could make out a grass rake from the bottom right of the hill ascending to the middle of the ridge line. I did think that this might be a short cut to the summit. Maybe if I had not been returning home that day I would have had time to go and investigate.



I continued south to south east and headed round the other side of the hill. My target was the beallach between Sail Mhor and Ruigh Meallain. This was close to the return leg of the Walkhighlands route although I did stay high enough up the hillside to avoid much to the bog. Being higher on the hill I could see the Ardessie Burn and it did not look to be in spate. My plan was to follow the Walkhighlands route back and hope to cross the burn to descend on the east side.

I continued to contour around the hill keeping well below the crags at around 450m and when I could see the ridge leading to the summit I gradually headed further up the hillside and joined the path on the ridgeline at about 600m.

I arrived at the summit just after noon and the visibility was better than the earlier forecast. I think that was helped by the stronger than forecast wind. I did walk out to the larger wind shelter cairn. Looking east along the ridge I could make out another cairn further but lower down. I thought is this the top of the grass rake I could see earlier. I did not venture towards it as I decided that this would have to wait for another day.





I retraced my steps back down the ridge but this time I continued to bottom of the beallach before heading down the wetter track to the north of a feeder burn.



I arrived at the Ardessie Burn and managed to cross it without any difficulty.



The track on the other side was more defined although at time more of a bog and eroded in places which is to be expected as it is a more popular track. Initially there were a couple of paths to follow. I opted for the higher option as I could see further on that there was only one path on the higher ground. Lower down towards the end of the walk it was very boggy and some of the rocks were wet and covered in moss. There were a few feeder streams of the burn that had to be crossed without any difficulty. I did notice on one of the crossings a strange pattern on some of the boulders. Maybe this is easy to explain but it is the first time that I have noticed this.



Before I reached the top of the gorge I did see about ten feral goats on the other side of the burn sitting down feeding on the grass.

The views of the gorge from the east were not as good as those from the west side but when you reach the waterfalls after the gorge the views of the waterfalls were better than those from the west side. This must have been the longest I have taken to walk half a mile back to the car. I stopped at every opportunity to look at the waterfalls.







Walking back to the car I could see on the road ahead a herd of feral goats. I couple of passing cars soon had them off the road and they were on the Scottish Water path when I reached them.



The waterfalls are a great feature of this walk. The dilemma is that you want to see them with a good flow of water but not too much that you cannot cross the burn further uphill. Ascending on the west of the burn removed this issue. However looking back at my walk it would have been a better if I had ascended on the east side and descended on the west. Ascending on the east I would have had plenty opportunities for breaks on the way up and the path for me would be easier to deal with than it was on the way down. In addition, descending on the west side I could have used the excellent Scottish Water path to use. Having said that I would have not been able to make this assessment had I not done the walk the way I did.