A Very Late First-foot
Fionas: Beinn na Feusaige, Càrn Breac
Date walked: 01/03/2014
Time taken: 8.5 hours
Distance: 14.5km
Ascent: 812m
MWIS and the Beeb agreed on fair prospects for a change. My chum Tony was free and just as keen to stretch his legs. A prang en route home from Invergordon, though, had left him shaken enough to beg a lift. Nice early start. Just beyond Conon Bridge, we chatted about the likely conditions. I imagined the crunch, much nicer than mushy floundering. Horrible thought: no boots! Air hyper-charged, back we went to Balloch to fetch them. Brisk explanation to Rosemary. Roughly an hour lost. Back in the mid-nineties, I had created a list of all conceivable items for single and multi-day tramps. With my thoughts running more seriously upon outstanding Munros and Corbetts, I had found said list and printed and studied it this very week. Boots feature on that list. A lesson learned? I doubt it.
It was after half past nine when we left the car. The air seemed fresh, despite last night’s frost, but we lugged our axes just in case. My time-honoured strategy favours steep starts. Beinn na Feusaige first, then. Thin trails hugging a plantation were easy enough. The plantation fence had collapsed completely at its top corner, a fact surely not lost on local deer. Rank, wet heather proved a much tougher proposition. Feusag is a Gaelic word for ‘beard’, and it strikes me that swathes of lush heather have perhaps characterised the lower reaches of this hill since the time of those folk who chose thus to name it. Grassy rakes then rocky outcrops began to predominate as we traversed the brow then sought the cairn. The first one was patently not the summit, but some rocks there offered just about enough to baffle us against a perniciously draughty wind.
We each of us cherish certain hills. My first stravaig after my move to Inverness in early 1990 had taken in the high tops above the Telford kirk in Strath Conon. Meallan nan Uan direttissima, then a wide loop that included Sgùrr a’ Ghlas-leathaid and Sgùrr a’ Choire-rainich, then up and over the highest of four roughly equal summits, Sgùrr a’ Mhuilinn. Rainich takes pride of place for me, a cracking eyrie overlooking Strath Bran, a feature, along with Meallan nan Uan and Beinn a’ Bha’ach Àrd, that I can even see from our house on a clear day. These hills remain firm favourites; so many good days and fond memories. They looked great today, just a selection from the array of iced gems throughout the compass, variously visible as showers came and went. Shadows cast by Bac an Eich’s steep north-western slopes lent fine contrast to upper Strath Conon. Immediately south rose the pleasing sinuous ridges linking Càrn Gorm, Moruisg and the split personality Sgùrr nan Ceannaichean, climbed at least twice as a Munro in my earlier days.
On, then, to the almost imperceptibly higher true top. In mist, this might pose a problem, unless you can locate the line of angle-iron fence posts that straddles this hill, and, just south of it, a small lochan, which is also a few yards beyond our false cairn. The O.S. map confirms the summit as the cairn some two hundred metres eastward. It similarly lies just south of the fence line.
We back-tracked via the posts, then down to a first col. I’m disappointed that I wasn’t aware enough of where to look for the remains of a B-26 Marauder aircraft that crashed here in June, 1943, with the loss of its five crewmen. I had mistakenly believed that they lay on the face of Càrn Breac. Our slushy descent didn’t allow for much gawking around, but it would have been nice to pay respects. The Allt Fhearchair flows southward from Lochan Meallan Mhic Iamhair. I have a feeling that the history of Farquhar and MacIvor might require more than mere casual enquiry. Meaning is, however, very often to be found in Gaelic place names. There’s been many a meall amongst my mountains, and I’ve come to associate them with lumpiness, or fat, sometimes boggy, often lazy slopes. That’s not to say that they lack any character. The genuine hill-goer invariably finds interest in any hill, and discovers that character has many guises. Meallan Mhic Iamhair is perhaps more character-forming than characterful, as it seems best to climb over rather than try to dodge around it. There’s a wee cairn at the top, from which the way ahead is clear enough. In mist, at least this scenario might help fix another point along the way.
This circuit has plenty of peaty hagged humps and hollows, but even in spite of the generally sloppy surfaces today, we invariably managed to thread more favourable routes to enable us to reach better ground. From a low point of 435 metres, a gradually rising traverse led us onto generally drier slopes, rather broader than your average hill ridge, and marked every so often by distinctively squared cairns. There was more snow as we gained altitude, almost getting to the fully supportive state, but usually none too bad. Thence to the summit, with the surmounting three-sided wall protecting a trig pillar from typically prevailing westerly weathers, although their disposition is too confined to afford you any sort of comfortable rest spot. We settled down behind the northern part of the wall, cheered the inner man, and drank in the scenes. The most eye-catching is Loch Coulin and its fringing woods, a large section of the western part of which has recently been clear-felled. The Torridonian panoply was recognisable enough, their heads, however, remaining obscured by cloud. Something of an oddity that. From Meall a’ Giubhais, via Fisherfield and a fittingly very white Fionn Bheinn, right round to the Carron and Monar mountains, then the Coulin peaks, virtually each summit surrendered its profile and disclosed a distinct snow line, which seemed to rise landward as we traced, for instance, the peaks along Loch Maree, Beinn Airigh Chàrr being almost devoid of snow. Surrounded by such exalted company, it’s only fair to add that Beinn na Feusaige also looked fine, with Loch Sgamhain (more intrigue – the loch of the lungs!) nestling at the head of Glen Carron. The true watershed of this narrow part of Scotland lies just a little north-east of the lochan. By contrast, at no stage during this outing could we form any better impression of Càrn Breac than of a broad whaleback that effectively formed the inner end of a crooked horseshoe.
Snow-drifted peat hummocks and open scars eased us down to a shallow mossy col. A short ascent, then we once again set to picking our way over a fair trade of short firm grass and eroded bog. Character, indeed, has many guises. Favouring the south side of our last bit of ridge brought us, after its highest point, to the brink of a yawning gully, Coire Dubh-riabhach, a fine example of headward erosion, and a striking breach in this distended ridge. A raven appeared close overhead, holding its own with a swagger against the breeze, showing off, as ravens do. A pair of golden plovers took off with a single alarm pipe, their early season courtship rudely interrupted. Red deer gangs ceased nibbling, raised heads, paused, considered, then bolted. A lot of bog wood is evident, and the names Coille Bhàn (fair or white wood) or Coille Bhreac (speckled or dappled wood) may help us imagine better spreads of trees than we see today. The enclosed area northward of these names has a coniferous/deciduous mixture as depicted on the O.S. map, and this might represent a remnant of the older woods.
Passage along this spur brought us additional delights, in the shapes beyond Glen Carron: the grand north-easterly prow of Bidein an Eòin Deirg, and the equally eye-catching pass leading from Craig through to Glenuig and Bearnais. Glowering skies westward had passed, disclosing bits of eastern Skye, and we picked out Plockton and Lochcarron. Another rather derelict fence led us to steeper ground and clear sight of the loop of old road and the car. The lowest reaches deteriorated into a testing, temperamental tussle on gelatinous stretches where faded grasses repeatedly sheared under our boots. All relatively brief, thank goodness, but I was left with a wet bum. It was still just about light when we reached the motor.
This circuit had taken us much longer than it ought, but as a first hill stravaig for ever so long, and given the changing scenes that accompanied us all the way, it somehow seemed fitting. Fresh air, great scenery, two fine wee hills and good company: a magnificent reunion, indeed. Roll on the next challenge!
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seasgaich99
- Location: Inverness
- Occupation: I.T. Lecturer
- Interests: Anything montane; bird-watching; history; foreign travel; classical music
- Activity: Munro compleatist
- Mountain: Bla Bheinn
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