The forecast for Tuesday was pretty poor. Steg and I had gone out for dinner to the Seaforth, then back to the van for more drams and chat, so we'd both awoken with a slightly sore head.
However, we were up at a reasonable hour and we'd decided to head south to Achnashellach to pick off Beinn Liath Mhòr and Sgorr Ruadh. We got some breakfast and coffee in the van and packed up and moved off about 0930. We headed to Garve, where I left the van and we took Steg's Dad's Volvo down the road to Achnashellach.
The rain was on and off but it didn't seem to windy down at glen level.
We left the car at 1025 and crossed the railway line at Achnashellach Station. We almost missed the track, but we knew it made sense to head towards the river, so we were all good there.
The views from the forest before we cleared the river were really atmospheric.
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| Fuar Tholl in the mist |
Fuar Tholl was looking pretty amazing, poking out of some beautiful old Scots Pines. Once out of the forest, it's quite a steep ascent up a good rocky stalker's path. This flattens out and apparently there are some nice views of the valley, but not for us today, just cloud and rain. We came to the path junction where we would start to ascend and some very heavy showers started to hit us.
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| Steg at the path junction |
It was a slog up that steep track in the rain, but eventually the contours started to flatten out a bit.
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| Steg in the rain - so much water in the landscape |
We had zero views - I looked at my watch and it had taken us over 2 hours to cover just 4km. Slow going but we had the gear and were comfortable. It was on with gloves and a warm layer under the waterproofs as we got to about 800m.
There was a lot of up and down to get to the other end of the ridge. Some of it easy slopes, but most of it quite rocky with some tricky steps.
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| Along the ridge |
It took us well over an hour to get along this ridge and when we got to the summit, it was wild. I'd estimate 50mph+ winds so we took cover and had some food. Summit was at 1400 bang on.
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| Beinn Liath Mhòr |
We had read that the traverse over to Sgorr Ruadh was quite tricky, and as we started to descend in that wind, and with the amount of rain forming rivers on the descent, we decided to get to the main path and have a conversation about what to do next. There were huge wet slabs of sandstone and visibility was really poor. There were a few minor cairns to follow but realistically we were just pushing towards that line where the path was. We got there just after 1500 and you can see the conditions in the pic below.
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| Poor vis |
At this point we decided the wind was too strong to go high again. So Sgorr Ruadh lives to fight another day. Wise move, if a little disappointing. We still had about 6km out on stalkers track, so it was time to just tramp on. My feet had stayed fairly dry and I was warm, so I was quite happy.
Eventually the rain went off a bit and we got some views on the descent.
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| Loch Coire Làir |
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| Beinn Liath Mhòr cliffs |
We rejoined the main junction and saw a mountain biker - the only other person we'd seen all day. He must have come from Coulin, but not sure!
The river we would have had to cross after Sgorr Ruadh was a raging torrent even at the ford, so we'd made the right call.
We made it back to the car at 1700. Afterwards, we headed back to Garve to get my van, then made some decisions about the next day. Steg was off to the Cairngorms to meet Dan, and I was going to head to the far north. But before that, we headed to the outdoor tumble dryer at Muir of Ord to get our kit dried off and have a chippy tea. It was a touching end to a damp day, but I was glad to get into the van that night, back at Garve for the second time this trip.
Hike Distance: 17.23km
Hike Time: 6h 34m
Ascent: 1129m
Munros Completed: 244 (38 remain!)
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