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Gulvain
Map Yet again the day started overcast and raining but the forecast for Fort William was better than for the Cairngorms, my original target, so I just hoped for the best and drove the 10 miles from the B&B at Corpach towards Mallaig, parking the car in a layby just round the corner of the A861 junction (10.00). With the rain now stopped I got the bike out and set off through Gleann Fionnlighe, riding along a good forestry track which followed the course of the river Fionn Lighe. About 4 miles along the track faltered a bit, just short of the footbridge over the Allt a Choire Reidh so I left the bike there (10.40) and walked the last bit to the foot of Gulvain (11.00).
The wooded area had come to an end where I left the bike and having emerged into a broad, open glen Gulvain appeared before me as a large triangular, grassy mass with a path zigzagging up its southern ridge. The slope was only moderately steep but unrelenting and seemed to go on and on and up and up with no remission. At about the 650 metre level I entered the clouds and from that point on there were no views to be had.
Carrying on up the hillside I eventually arrived at a small, 856 metre, peak where the path dipped down a bit and bore left before climbing up again. About 500 yards further on I reached the rocky southern Top of Gulvain which is marked by a columnar trig point.
There was absolutely no sign of any other peaks in the cloud but I knew the true summit lay further on to the north-east. Consequently I set off downhill in that direction, dropping down 100 metres or more and then following the path along the crest of a long ridge which narrowed progressively to less than 2 metres wide with very steep drops on each side, especially the left (west). It had become quite windy and the temperature had dropped considerably so I ended up with all my layers on. There was still no rain but the cloud droplets driven against me by the wind achieved the same effect in making me wet all over. Nonetheless a final pull up a rocky incline brought me to the summit which is marked by a large cairn (13.10).
There was nothing to stay there for but after taking a photo of the cloud, having a bite to eat and phoning reassuring messages home it was 13.34 before I left. I then had to resort to the compass in places as the path disappeared a couple of times and it was easy to go adrift in the cloud. All was well though and I successfully retraced my steps back to the southern Top and thence back down the mountain.
Back at the bike I rode the first half of the return journey in 21 minutes, crossed the river by the wooden bridge and then belted along the second half, mostly downhill, in 7 minutes. Got back to the car at 3.53. The B&B in Corpach was called Carinbrook and was run by Mrs Heather Davies and her husband. She told me she had been born in Corpach and had lived there all her life. Being grimy, sweaty and smelly by now I was ready for a shower but as soon as I was stripped off I noticed a small black thing on my leg. When I tried to brush it away it didn't come off. Instead it moved, and I realised with growing horror that this was a tick, my first one in 19 years of roaming around Scotland. Worse, the wee bastard was determined not to be parted from me - with his head buried in my leg he waved his little legs and impudently waggled his arse at me, adding insult to my already grievous sense of injury. They have a vice-like grip for such a small creature and with fishhook-like barbs in their mouthpieces you can't easily pull them off. This was awful; I felt violated! I remembered reading somewhere that you could put vaseline on them to suffocate them but being fresh out of vaseline at the time I decided to try shampoo instead. Unfortunately this wasn't firm enough to hold its shape and kept collapsing whereupon the little monster's body would re-emerge… albeit spotlessly clean and with shiny, luxuriant tresses.
In the end I just got the tweezers out of my Swiss Army knife and pulled it to pieces. You shouldn't do this but the alternative of leaving it there eating me was too awful to contemplate. I don't know how much of him is left in me or what will become of it all - maybe I'll turn into a giant tick, who knows? If I could press a button and destroy the entire tick species I would do so. Footnote: On re-reading Cameron's route guide I noticed the following, eerily phrophetic, observation: | ||||||||||
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