Couer D'or

This post is written for a couple of people in particular, so excuse it for not being a full “walk report”, but rather an assessment of how difficult I think An Teallach is.

For those who don’t know, An Teallach (the anvil) is a mountain about 8 miles (as the crow flies) south of Ullapool, consisting of several peaks and a section of very rough, pinnacle-y ridge. It is this ridge that makes An Teallach famous as it is considered one of the most difficult ridge walk scrambles in the UK. It is technically classed as a scramble, although a lot of people recommend ropes for some parts of it.

I’m not that into climbing. I like it, and have done a bit, but don’t know enough about it to just go out and do it, and it takes a lot more organisation and equipment than I usually want to deal with. Scrambling however,… scrambling is perfect. It’s like going for a normal walk, and then climbing up some stuff while you’re out there. I haven’t done much “formal scrambling”, on recognised routes, or where that was the intention. I have, however, done a lot of “accidental scrambling” where I’ve picked a route up a hill (usually taking a shortcut) and then realised it is a whole lot steeper than I thought! The small amount of rock climbing that I have done also helps my scrambling ability.

So, An Teallach. I had got it into my head to do this hill… and not just the peaks, but the entire airy ridge walk. You can just do the peaks, in two goes, from either end. Or you can do all the peaks and a traverse, by taking the bypass trail, which is a fairly level trail just down from the main ridge. However, from what I saw of it, it looked very loose and scree-y and generally not like a fun walk. I would certainly never go out intending to take this path, although it is good to have it as a backup option if you can’t get across the top of the ridge for some reason.

I have a mad-keen scrambling friend (let’s call her Kirsten) who did the An Teallach ridge years ago and was keen to do it again. And happy to nurse me through getting into proper scrambling with the help of her vast experience, enthusiasm and extreme confidence. Luckily she’s also practical and realistic so I could trust her opinion of what I could and couldn’t do. Going out with someone who massively overestimates your ability is almost as bad (or maybe worse) than going out with someone who knows nothing.

We had two practice days before An Teallach. The first day we went on a gentle stroll along the Postie Path (Strathcanaird to Achiltibuie), then ended up climbing up the nose of Ben Mor Coigach. In incredibly strong winds. The second day we went up Stac Pollaidh, reaching the actual summit and climbing everything we could find on the way (and afterwards). Also in incredibly strong winds, and at 8pm at night (which was great, because it meant that even though it was June, we were the only people up there). These days not only built my confidence (or, more accurately, got my head into climbing mode and silenced that tiny voice that instantly says “ooo, this is scarey, you might fall and die, you shouldn’t do this”) but they also gave Kirsten a chance to assess my scrambling ability.

(You may get walk reports about these other days, and the day after An Teallach when we “accidentally” went up Suilven, but I can’t be sure yet)

We started at the carpark near Corrie Hallie and walked in along the track south of An Teallach, then up the flank to Sàil Liath. This is a fairly straightforward long slog, although there are some nice airy bits just before the summit. The purpose of today’s walk was to make the most of the exposure, views and rock, so we did walk along the edge and look off everything we could even at this point. I think this served a second purpose (the first being fun) of desensitizing us to heights and getting our eye in.

Long slog up.

A chance to explain some geology (see how the planes of quartzite angle out of the landscape?)

Big steep walls, easy to walk around though.

Steep bits to play on…

…. but still an easy path.

Big walls (see Kirsten at the top?)

This was early on – we did not stand on this bit.

Just an idea of some of the airy bits

Walking safely away from the edge!

Coming off the first summit and heading towards the ridge, we knew we would be coming up to “the crux”: the most difficult part of the scramble. This happens at the very start of the pinnacle ridge walk. Kirsten remembered encountering a big, sheer, impassable wall on her last time here, which she ended up trying to climb around and almost falling to her death (that may be slightly melodramatic, but you get the point). We’d also already met a hill walker coming down who said he’d come across an impassable wall so had turned back and was calling it a day. We were on the lookout for this super scary, incredibly difficult bit of scramble that would soon appear in our way, potentially stopping us from achieving our goal of standing on top of all the pinnacles.

In the meantime, we enjoyed the “easy” stuff, climbing up anything that looked like fun and looking off the edge a lot. The rock was really lovely – nicely weathered sandstone. Very intact, so not flaking off. Lots of joints and bedding planes that you could get fingers and toes into, rough, rounded edges that you could hug up against and that you could get a good grip on.

Eventually, after lots of playing around and having fun, we concluded that we were actually already on top of the first pinnacle (there are four main ones) so we must’ve been past the crux. And I don’t mean bypassed…. I just mean that we’d done it and not realised it was the crux. There was no impassable wall, and no terrifying moments. We discussed  it at great length, and googled it a lot when we came home, and did work out where the crux was. And it was the hardest point of the whole walk. But it was definitely not an impassable wall.

I will try to tell you about it.

We came across a section that was a bit more solid (and therefore harder to climb) than most of the hill. You could continue on at the base of this rock, but it did not present any better opportunities to get up it. I tried along this way for a bit, and ended up at a smooth, slick face which I had a go at getting up, but was really not happy with it. Meanwhile, Kirsten had gone around the face of the rock towards the steep side (northern) of the hill. She had found a way up there, so came back and got me. “The way” involved climbing up about 4 metres in a roughly 30^o cleft in the rock. This required some climbing skill, but the real difficulty came from the fact that this cleft was very close to the sheer cliff into the corrie. Maybe a couple of metres away, albeit with nice flat solid stone under foot.  The climbing itself was not particularly difficult. Not exactly beginner climbing – I definitely needed fingers and toes and some understanding of how to best use my weight while climbing – but not expert climbing either – as I said, I haven’t done much climbing, and certainly no formal climbing training and don’t know any technical things. One thing I remember, which may help you get a better feel for both the risk and my climbing ability was that at one point I thought (as I was climbing facing the southern wall, with my back to the drop into the corrie) “hmmm, if I fall off this now I’m going to go straight backwards and off the edge. Maybe I should turn around.” So I turned to climb facing the north-western edge of the cleft, so that my force off the wall, and my weight, would push me back towards the south, the shallow slope and the body off the mountain, rather than straight off the edge. I felt much more comfortable then and climbed it without any problems.

I believe somewhere in this is the crux. maybe about half way up the darker rock section on the left.

I believe this is the view along the exposed wall to the side of the crux (probably where Kirstin had her earlier near-death experience)

This is the tiny bit of ground between the crux and the corrie.

Me, on the way up. Still facing the wrong way at this point.

Now half way up, turned around a bit.

So, that is the crux. It does take a little bit of climbing ability, but also requires you not to freak out about the VERY large sheer drop just to one side. A lot of people take a rope, just to give that sense of security (and, OK, a safety net) on this bit. Alternatively, if you are not comfortable going up it, you can bypass the first pinnacle (on a boring, screey path just below the rocky summit) and come up, I think, between the first and second pinnacles. At this point you could backtrack onto the first pinnacle if you really wanted to see what was up there.

Looking back off the top of the crux.

The other side of the crux wall.

Feeling chuffed on top.

Chilling out on top.

After the crux (having not realised we’d done it), we took the highest route we could take, over the very top of all the pinnacles. We climbed up and down walls that were pretty vertical, but had so many good hand and foot holds that it was like a children’s playground. They also all had solid ground at the bottom, so we were never hanging over an abyss. We walked up rocky steps that were a little exposed and I didn’t like the look of, but that Kirsten told me was a Grade 1 scramble “which means you can do it without hands”. So I did! (scrambing has three grades, 1, 2 and 3 in order of increasing difficulty) In general, we just had loads of fun climbing up anything we could, finding routes over and around things and enjoying the sense of space and air.

An example of some of the walking.

Easy climbing

About to go up that bit behind us, but on the left edge, not the right!

See – easy climbing!

Maybe next time we’ll go up this bit?

Steep, exposed, but room to stand away from the edge.

This give you a good view of the bypass track.

There’s a nice video of this, where I take both hands off, so it’s not as steep as it looks.

One hand. Totally relaxed.

Grade 1 scramble…. no hands.

The block from the previous picture – now you can see the slope on it… but also the exposure if I’d gone around the corner.

Grade 1 scramble. Looks worse from this angle!!

Just an airy, disconcerting photo of the edge!

Just another shot to show where we we’d been.

Pretty happy with ourselves.

Looking the other way, to the remaining summit, rather than back at the pinnacles.

The edge we were about to walk along.

And after walking along it….

Easy climbing rock

We also had a mission to find “Lord Berkeley’s Seat” – a famous vantage point that we had been led to believe (or led ourselves to believe?) was incredibly exposed. Since we didn’t actually know what it looked like, we just took a photo of Kirsten on every single terrifying, exposed, overhanging piece of rock that we could find. Except one, which even she wasn’t crazy enough to go out onto. Note here that Kirsten went out onto all the crazy “seats”. I stood well back off the edge and took photos. And occasionally asked her to go closer to the edge so I could get a better photo. I like being up high, and looking off sheer cliffs, but I do not trust my balance enough to go and stand on the edges of things. An Teallach does not require you to do that. There were plenty of sections where Kirsten walked along a line of blocks right on the edge of a sheer cliff. I walked half a metre away, on the next line of blocks so I could see straight off the edge but was not at risk of one tiny moment of inattention throwing me screaming into the abyss. It’s like I was walking on the steps and she was walking on the handrail…..

Enough about that. Back to Lord Berkeley’s Seat. We also googled that, a LOT, when we got home and we finally concluded that it was a fairly uninspiring piece of rock that was nowhere near as death defying, or as good a view, as most of the ones Kirsten had been on.

She wouldn’t sit on this one after I pointed out that it didn’t really look connected underneath anymore!

It was quite sad when we got to the end of the pinnacles, but we duly finished off with the second Munro of the walk, and then a bit of scree-ridge, and some more rocks that didn’t really need climbing but we did anyway (including fake-hanging off the edge, taking photos to make it look like we were hanging in mid air, but were actually about a foot above the ground), before descending a very steep grassy slope into a lovely corrie (Glas Tholl), then onto a stalker’s path, and back to the road. Except that we got lost in a massive rhododendron forest just before the road, to the point that we could hear the road only metres away but we couldn’t get to it!! Clearly we got out eventually but that was definitely the worst point of the whole walk.

Yeah! We went along that!

Just another example of the easy rock.

Fake dangerous climbing

Seriously, the ground is just below the photo.

Trying to find interesting climbing on an otherwise easy path.

Looking back at the pinnacles.

We also saw a cool goat.

This went on for ages, and then the path disappeared.

We set off just after 8:30 and finished at around 7pm.  It took 10 ¾ hours for us to do about 20.5km and 1600m vertical ascent. It was a long day but only because we took so much time playing around on top. I would love to have been able to get to the rest of the peaks and ridges, but for this trip, our time was much better spent enjoying the pinnacles. The weather was perfect: full sunshine, warm but not too hot, dry, and a very light breeze. We picked the best day to do An Teallach. This is not a walk I would want to do in either high winds or wet, slippery conditions. Damp would be OK, but not really wet…. and why would you when you’re doing it for fun? I would definitely not do it in winter. Climbing would be much more difficult with frozen fingers (or gloves), and I don’t like ice (or snow) when I’m that exposed. Interestingly, one of the easiest way of finding “the” route was to look for scratches on the rock from people doing it in winter with crampons on. Presumably they have ropes and/or MUCH more experience than me!!

A summary? This was a fantastic walk, and is quite doable if you have any aptitude for scrambling/climbing. I would only do it in good weather though. Also, if your head is not in the right place, it might be worth putting off for another time, or building up some more confidence on other hills. The scrambling we did on Ben Mor Coigach and Stac Pollaidh was much scarier (in places) than what we did on An Teallach. I don’t know how much it helped me to have someone much more experienced than me at scrambing and routefinding. I’m pretty sure I could still do it by myself, although it wouldn’t have been as much fun.

“What??? Another blog post so soon?” I hear you gasp. Yes, but don’t get used to it! Yesterday was an absolutely glorious day here and I took advantage of it, and have some stunning photographic evidence to prove it.

Glorious, to me, is sunshine, bright blue skies, snow on the hills, 2 degrees, a slight breeze and enough ice to be crunchy underfoot but not too slippery. Proper snow underfoot would’ve been even better, but I would’ve had to go a lot further afield to get that.

I didn’t feel like a hard walk, nor like going a long way to get one, so I decided to explore a little way up the Rhiconich River. The Cape Wrath trail recommends coming north along the north-eastern side of this river, despite warning that there is quite a deep wade, impossible in spate, across the Garbh Allt (rough river). I’ve always been curious about what this “deep wade” was like, and why they don’t suggest walking along the other side of the river, so I thought I’d have a look.

My walks quite often go like this:
1. First 20 minutes: enthusiasm, enjoyment and optimism
2. Next 30 – 40 minutes: really just wanting to go home
3. From here it either becomes a fairly determined drive to get where I’m going, or settles into a relaxed but steady rhythm.

Quite often it becomes a determined drive because I’ve been over-ambitious with my planning (or simply a little careless with my distance and terrain estimates, like one memorable occasion recently that I’ve told some of you about already!). It’s not that I want to walk really far and fast and work really hard. It’s just that quite often the places I want to go to are a long way away!! And I’m stubborn. And lazy in a crazy kind of way that means if I’m half way to somewhere, I’d rather push on and get there this time, than come back again another day over all the same ground.

Luckily today had no grand goals other than the Garbh Allt and the longest plan (walk to the end of the second loch, Loch a’ Garbh-bhaid Mor, and back up the other side) was easily achievable in the amount of time I wanted to be out walking. Well, it turns out I only just achieved it, . . . but that was with lots of stopping to look at things and generally taking it easy.

I even drove to the start of the walk! This is a big step for me, especially as this is only 2.5km from my house! Normally I would’ve just walked all the way from home. That would’ve turned this into another of those “fun in a really painful, exhausting way” walks.

Thanks to all of that, and a conscious effort to rein myself in and just enjoy the walk rather than having to go further or faster, this was a really enjoyable outing. After 2 hours I was thoroughly relaxed, at peace and incredibly happy. One of the nicest walks I’ve had in a long time.

Oh, and just so you know, the Garbh Allt was a knee high wade for me at normal water levels. I actually had to go upstream a bit so I could cross without getting water in my wellington boots. There is also no reason why you can’t walk up the south western side of the river and lochs so I have no idea why they recommend wading the Garbh Allt instead. The only difficult bit was right at the end near the Rhiconich Hotel where there is a section of forest on the south-west side. This was terrible to walk through. We need more deer to eat the trees down!! (in-joke: there is a big push from some organisations up here to cull more deer to allow more forests to grow back)

And now, on to the photos!

The photos are in chronological order so you can feel like you’re on the walk with me. (This started in slideshow format but I decided I didn’t like it so switched to tiled mosaic display. However, there was resounding positive feedback about the slideshow so I’m putting it back in. Just shows that my viewing habits and requirements are different to yours. Feel free to let me know what you think of slideshow format if you haven’t already. The first photo should be the moss, so wait for that one to come around if you want to watch them in order.)

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12km, 4 hrs.

(Firstly, I’d like to apologise in advance for the number of photos. I think I need to set myself a photo limit, eg 15 per post, and stick to it rigidly. However, this is an area that I love, it was a stunning two days, and I’m being self indulgent as it is a birthday post. Please hover the mouse over photos to see the captions – I’ve taken the effort to put them in – you may as well read them and get more of the story)

Last year, the day before my birthday, I walked from Blairemore up to Cape Wrath, then spent the night in the bothy at Kearvaig bay. I woke, on the morning of my birthday, on a beautiful, remote beach, with deer at the window and a delightful day of walking ahead of me. I wanted to repeat that trip, exactly one year later.

It turns out I couldn’t, because they were bombing on the Cape the day I should’ve walked out!! Shortly after finding out about that I got called into work that day anyway, so it was kind of lucky. My friend who works at the range assured me that there would be no bombing for the next two days so I left on my birthday instead, technically an exact leap year after my first trip!

I left from home, at Oldshoremore, at about 9am. It helps having tried to leave the day before so I was already packed! It was a stunning day – bright blue skies, warm and a gentle breeze. A far cry from the grey drizzle that I had the previous trip.

Posing for photos with our packs before leaving home.

Beautiful coastal crofts.

We walked up the road to Blairemore, then followed the track to Sandwood Bay. From here we crossed the river (shoes off and shallow wade, then stop for a snack afterwards to dry my feet) …

The track to Sandwood, past Loch na Gainimh.

Stunning colours in the deer grass and heather, and reflections on the perfectly still Loch na Gainimh

More stunning reflections on Loch na Gainimh. (There are 5 lochs along this track . . I took 5 pictures of one!)

Stunning colour on the hillside and in the sky!

The well maintained track to Sandwood Bay. Very picturesque.

First view of Sandwood Bay.

Sheep grazing near the dunes at Sandwood. The Cape Wrath Lighthouse is actually visible in this picture (although is does look like a speck of dirt on the screen)

The long, wide expanse of beach that is Sandwood Bay. Lots of people here on this lovely day.

Happy dog at our lunch stop.

New trekking poles posing for a photo at our lunch stop, looking up the Sandwood River

Merlin snoozing (upright) in the sun. Nice shot of the beach and Am Buachaille in the background.

Looking back at Sandwood Bay and Sandwood Loch

Looking back at Sandwood Bay and the sea stack, Am Buachaille (the herdsman).

…then headed inland to Strathchailleach bothy. This bothy is somewhat famous as one man actually made it his home (with no electricity, phone and the nearest road being almost 7km away cross-country) for many years. It is said, therefore, to feel a lot more homely than most other bothies. It even has a cat flap!!?! Strathchailleach means “valley of the old woman/hag”.

Being such a warm day Merlin was pretty desperate to cool off in any patch of water, or bog, he could find.

I lifted him over this fence. See all that mud on him? Guess where a lot of it ended up.

First view of Strathchailleach bothy.

Cat flap. Hmmmmm

Bright colours and paintings ON the walls in Strathchailleach bothy.

Up close at Strathchailleach bothy.

Looking back at Strathchailleach bothy (see the two hikers approaching?)

From here, it was across the Allt a Ghobhair (river of goats?) and up to the Cape. I’d seen a lot of people at Sandwood Bay, and a couple more on the way to the bothy, including one guy who was also walking up to the Cape. We walked together a little way, but went off at our own speeds after entering the military range. From here I meandered across the top of a few hills (Cnoc an Daimh and Cnoc a’ Ghiubhais) then up towards the Lighthouse before heading east to the trig point on top of Dunan Mor (big fort).

Approaching the military bombardment zone fence. Red flags out = no entry!

Along the Keisgaig River up to the cape. . . .

A fort on top of Cnoc a’ Ghiubais.

Nice panorama east of Cnoc a’ Ghiubhais.

Big army boats at sea . . . hopefully not firing shells in this direction!

Sitting in MORE bogs . . . still a long way to go to the lighthouse.

Looking at Stac Clò Kearvaig from Cnoc a’ Ghiubhais . . . quite a long way to go!

Merlin and the vedette (no one was home – we checked).

1 mile to go! (to the lighthouse)

Beautiful bogs and peat hags

The road to the lighthouse (spot the dog)

Proper bog and peat hags (looking south – you can just make out Am Buachaille).

Posing nicely in front of the lighthouse.

Sandy bogs. These were starting to dry out in the heat. Made walking through them a lot easier!

A lovely shot of the lighthouse (the closest I got on this trip).

Beautiful example of peat bogs. Guess where Merlin’s about to end up.

Not doing a great job of keeping his food and my coal dry.

And again . . . Always with that “what are you looking so upset about?” look.

Trig point on Dùnan Mòr, lighthouse in background.

Posing dutifully next to the trig point on Dùnan Mòr (looking east towards Kearvaig).

Then a meander east through peat hags and bogs to Kearvaig. I didn’t walk along the cliff edge since I had Merlin with me and, while he has been reasonably sensible with cliff edges so far, I don’t really like risking it on unneccessary and particularly “deadly” cliffs like these.

The bogs we had to navigate through.

As you can see in the pictures, it was a very sunny day. It was also quite warm. We had also walked quite a long way, up and down hills, over quite difficult terrain. Merlin was carrying his own dinner, plus coal for a fire that night. I was quite tired, with sore feet from constantly sliding into the front of my shoes on the hills. Merlin was hot and, it turned out, quite tired also. We were very happy when we finally spied Kearvaig at about 5pm. A bit of a wash in the Kearvaig River would’ve been delightful. Sadly the midges descended on us as we got into the sheltered valley near sunset!! So, a dash to the bothy, a dash back to the river to fill waterbottles, then we locked ourselves in the bothy for the evening (other than some sunset photos later on).

See Merlin?

First view of Kearvaig bothy.

Kearvaig Bay and Stac Clò Kearvaig (the sea stac on the left)

Almost there!!

Finally at beach level! Didn’t stop the midges though.

Merlin crashed out on the bench instantly, I lit the fire, heated water for my fancy birthday dinner and had a cider to celebrate. Some reading (a book I’d bought with me – what a luxury trip!) and some chocolate finished off a delightful evening before gratefully succumbing to sleep.

Out like a light!

Birthday celebration dinner. Even heated water for the instant food!

Looking back at Cape Wrath at sunset.

Sunset over the beach.

Candle lit in the bothy window.

The next morning dawned just as brightly and beautifully. We set off early (6:30am) as we had a long way to go. We headed east to Sgribhis-bheinn – an entrancingly shaped hill with a gentle slope to the north and steep cliffs on the south west. Also, another trig point on top! Trig points are cool! They are always on high points (so you can see for miles), they are for surveying (and surveying is definitely cool), they were generally built here AGES ago (ages in Australian terms, not ages in UK terms) and they should be set up so you can always see 2 other trig points from one of them. So if you go to them all, you’ve sort of seen a network across the entire country. This was a proper, old-fashioned, trig point made out of stone rather than a solid concrete block. The view was also stunning, as to be expected.

A bright, sunny morning!

A lovely shot of the bothy in the morning light.

Another beautiful shot of Kearvaig bothy (seriously, is it possible to take a bad photo of this bothy?)

Looking back, just getting back into the sun from in the valley.

Very poorly exposed, but a good shot of dog, poles, hat and breakfast!

Looking back at the bothy and lighthouse.

Kearvaig Bay and Cape Wrath from Sgribhis-bheinn.

Looking south towards Fashven (left) and Maovally (centre), where we’re heading, from Sgribhis-beinn.

We were then heading south west to Maovally, one of the larger hills on the Cape, and one I hadn’t visited yet. This whole area, between Kearvaig, Sgribhis-beinn and Maovally, is heavily used for bombing and military exercises. There a lots of signs warning of danger, explosive objects and potential death. We mucked around with an old sandbag fort, walked around a large bomb crater and even found a huge old shell!

Sandbag fort (the pointy hill ahead is Fashven)

Merlin playing soldiers!

Quite a large bomb crater

A large shell I found . . . apparently non-explosive – I did report it.

Maovally has a lovely cairn, and some interesting sandstone pavement topography on top. Also stunning views, although it was getting a bit hazy so the photos aren’t great. It was still early, but with already 5km of walking and 500m of climbing today, plus yesterday, I was getting tired. Walking on the Cape is not easy. Not only are there no paths, but it is constantly up and down or, just as bad, walking sideways across a slope. The heather is thick, and where there is no heather it is usually thick, tussocky grass hiding soft marsh underneath. At this point I was torn between taking the shortest way out, or what looked like the lowest, easiest way out. I went for the easiest!!

Views east to Durness, Loch Eriboll and Beinn Ceannabeinne from Maovally.

Looking at Fashven from Maovally summit.

Looking towards the cape (showing off trekking poles on summit cairn – alternative to making the dog pose to prove I’ve been there).

Lovey cairn.

Somewhere that way is the way home!

We hit the fence around the military area in the perfect spot where it crossed the Kearvaig River so Merlin could get under the fence (this was planned). We then meandered up the river between Cnoc na Glaic Tarsuinn and Beinn Dearg (red hill). I would like to go up all of these hills one day, but was very much into survival and “just get home” mode! I had been planning on going up Creag Riabhach (the stripy rocks) to see another trig point but one look at the size of the hill scrapped that idea! It also would’ve meant a lot of extra distance as the northern edge is mainly cliffs so I’ve have to walk around to the south side, then walk up it.

An old house, just inside the fence, next to the Kearvaig River, looking back towards Fashven

A nice spot to get under the fence at the Kervaig River.

Just another photo of the landscape.

Merlin still had energy to play!

Merlin looking majestic.

A tiny bit of breeze today. Still quite warm though.

Another fence I had to lift him over. (We have recently been learning to jump fences to save us both from this ordeal)

Impressive sandstone pavement (on the ground) and the impressive cliffs of Creag Riabhach.

Strange sandstone pavement / slabs.

Instead, I picked the shortest, lowest possible route home, via Strathan bothy. I skirted Loch a’ Phuill Buidhe (loch of the yellow pool or mud?) and crossed the saddle bewteen An Grianan and Meall Dearg (red hill). Again, two hills I’d like to go the top of one day . . but not today! As I got over the top of the saddle I realised that in my haste to get home quickly I hadn’t paid much attention to my map. The southern slope, at Sron a’ Ghobair (nose of the goats?) is VERY steep! 150m vertical in 100m horizontal . . . . I was actually not sure if I’d be able to get down for a while. At this steepness, you can’t see if the ground suddenly drops off a cliff below so at any point could end up having to backtrack and find another way. Luckily I did make it down, skirting to the east slightly and following the river (Allt na Rainich) down.

To go around the hill (all the way to the right), or over the lowest point in the middle? Lowest point in the middle I think!

The loch of yellow mud (with Creag Riabhach behind)

Quite a barren rocky summit to the saddle . . . potentially from overgrazing? Or just the exposed position and poor soil.

Looking towards Sandwood Bay and home (wishing I was there already!!).

Lovely view of hills to the south. And Merlin is sitting down! Don’t tell me he’s tired??

Hmmmm . . .maybe a little steeper than I’d realised it would be?

Yep, pretty steep. Maybe I should’ve gone around.

Slightly to the right of the previous picture.

Looking back (again) at what I’d come down. Still doesn’t look any better!

In panorama . .

I was incredibly happy to finally see Strathan bothy. I have seen this one before, but only from the other side of the river so this is the first time I’ve visited it. It is a very nice bothy and I happily sat down for a while to read an MBA newsletter had been left there.

Ummm . . there is supposed to be a bothy here. Please tell me I’m not in the wrong place and have further to go!

Ahhhhh . . there it is. So happy to see this!

Getting closer. You can see how remote these places are.

Trying to find the easiest way to approach the bothy. No paths here.

On the approach.

A much more rakish angle.

In the ruined outbuildings . . . lots of old horsey bits and pieces.

A lovely, neat, tidy bothy.

Leaving Strathan bothy

As I left I passed a young foreign couple. They really didn’t look equipped for proper walking so I’ve no idea what they were doing this far out. It looked like they must’ve walked up river from Sandwood Bay but it is still quite a long walk home with not a great track.

I left them to their own devices (they didn’t seem interested in talking), waded the river in front of the bothy (Abhainn an t-Srathain) and headed south west to intersect the vague path that goes from the main road to Strathan. I could’ve followed it directly from the bothy but it heads east before curling back and I didn’t want to walk the extra distance. Big mistake! As poor as the paths are out here, they are much easier (usually) than walking cross country. I probably walked for 1.5km before I found the path again across fairly flat, featureless bogs. Not that it wasn’t pretty . . . just that I was tired and really wanted to get home!

Once I found the path it was fairly straightforward, and I staggered home by about 4:30 (in time to get to the shop to buy food to cook dinner for a friend that night!).

Maybe I’m not the only one who’s tired?

Ahhhh, finally! A path!! (next to Loch Mòr a’ Chraisg.

Arkle, Ben Stack and Quinag (L-R) viewed across typical NW Sutherland bog.

Almost home. Sutherland hills lined up on the skyline – Foinaven, Arkle, Ben Stack, Quinag (L-R).

Some side notes:

Yes, I had a black toe, probably incurred the first day. It is still, resolutely, black almost 5 months later!

Black toe 2 months later.

Black toe 5 months later . . .

I was exhausted when I got home. My tracker says that I did 50km over the two days, over hills and some very rough, boggy terrain, so that is not really surprising.

Red flags on the military range means “Danger. Active Exercises. No Entry”. As you can see in some of the photos, there are still some red flags out. However, I had been assured by staff that I was allowed in, and I did actually see the tourist bus when I was on my way up Maovally. Still, I felt naughty and nervous the whole time, and carefully avoided seeing anyone! That is why I didn’t go up to the lighthouse, left so early from Kearvaig and was generally keen to get out of the range on my way home!