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Beinn Liath Mhor Sgorr Ruadh Map For the first Munro trip of 2008 I collected Andrew and drove up to Strathpeffer on the Saturday. There we stayed at the Mackay Hotel (£25), fortified ourselves with a reasonable pasta arabiata and pineapple sponge pudding with custard, then sampled a couple of pints at the Mackay and a couple more at the Strathpeffer Hotel across the road. On Sunday, the day of the walk, we drove the 36 miles west to Achnashellach and parked at the same spot as for the Sgurr Choinnich and Lurg Mhor trips. There we got booted up and set off eagerly up the road looking for the track to the hills. A quarter of a mile further on we decided we might be better off with the map I'd left in the car. After retrieving the map it then became obvious that we were in completely the wrong place so we had to get back in the car and drive another couple of miles to the correct start point. There we parked and finally set off up the correct cart track at 10.15, just ahead of a party of two boys and two girls who were getting kitted up in their rather brightly coloured gear. We forged ahead through the forest stage but somehow after about half a mile we took a wrong turn and had to retrace our steps, ending up behind the Gay Brigade who appeared to be spot on with their navigation that day. Not to worry, on leaving the forested section we passed them to take the lead again and at this point the hills came properly into view with the Coire Lair lying ahead, Sgorr Ruadh rising on the left and the long ridge of Beinn Liath Mhor to the right.
The bottoms of the glens were now clear enough, all brown, grey and green, but the hilltops had a light covering of snow - happily they were free of cloud though. The weather forecast had promised that today would be the better of our two days up here and sure enough it was looking fine; a few clouds scudded past quite briskly but patches of bright blue amongst them offered us hope for a fair trek.
We carried on along the path towards BLM and when the track split we took the right turn - or wrong turn as it turned out to be. It seemed that we just couldn't get anything right today - a fact which was confirmed when I tried to put my hands in my pockets and found I'd got my overtrousers on back to front. Not very comfortable really but it was just that kind of day I suppose. Anyway only a few hundred yards down this latest wrong path we realised our mistake and cut our losses by heading directly across to where we thought we should be. This entailed a brief slog over rough, steep ground and on rejoining the correct path we found ourselves yet again behind the Gang of Four. 'Aha,' they must have thought, 'there are those idiots who keep losing their way… maybe it's because their pants are on the wrong way… ' Still, having your pants on the right way round isn't everything and once again we managed to outdistance them as we ascended the very steep approach to the first peak, the easternmost one of the BLM massif. At the top a large cairn awaited us along with a strong, cold wind which blasted against us, sucking the heat from our bones and trying its best to force us back whence we came.
We paused for a few moments there but it wasn't very comfortable and as the Gay Brigade once more hove into sight we set off again along the exposed and undulating, mile-long ridge. There were several major ups and downs en route and the wind wouldn't let up, making it quite a drain on our energy just to stay upright. There were good views of the surrounding area though, of Sgorr Ruadh to the south-east and Liathach looming impressively over in the north-east. We eventually reached the summit of Beinn Liath Mhor at about 13.40 and had a sit down, a bite to eat and an appreciative look back over the way we had come and the serrated outline of the neighbouring hills. Soon the other mob caught up but it wasn't of their nature to stop and stare. They carried on and shortly afterwards we followed them west to the end of the ridge where the ground falls steeply away to the col between BLM and Sgorr Ruadh.
We began the descent and after we'd gone some distance Andrew dislodged a large rock (about 2 ft x 1 ft x 1 ft) which toppled towards him and fell against his leg. Fortunately it didn't break anything but it did hurt him quite a bit and after limping along for some distance he said he didn't feel up to continuing over the next Munro. He didn't want to stop me from bagging it though and suggested that I should carry on and he would descend from the col on his own and make his way along the track there to rejoin our outbound route. The Gay Brigade had had the same idea and were already making their way down that way. I wasn't sure what to do next. I had some qualms about carrying on on my own for the trip so far had been fairly demanding, mainly because of the wind and cold; also it was 14.00 and I didn't want to run out of daylight. Still, the temptation of copping another peak was ever present and I felt I had to give it a try. I bade Andrew farewell and set off scrambling across the interim 769 metre hillock, soon donning my crampons to cope with the icier ground there. It was hard going and with my enthusiasm sinking lower and lower I kept pausing to see how far Andrew had got and wondering repeatedly whether I should just call it off and go after him. At length, however, I reached the bottom of the col and stood there gazing uncertainly at the ascent ahead of me. One stretch at a time I carried on - 20 yards, pause, think about turning back, another 30 yards, pause… etc. All around was snow, ice and rock although the gradient at that point was not very difficult. I got onto the crest of the NW spur and then had a rather harder scramble, considerably hindered by the howling wind, before reaching the summit of Sgorr Ruadh (15.50)
A slight twinge of apprehension now stirred within me for the day was getting well advanced but of course there was no use worrying about it so I pushed on, descending carefully over frozen boulders to the broad bealach which lies between Sgorr Ruadh and the neighbouring 'Top', Fuar Tholl. There I hunted around and eventually found the path marked on the map. This was a relief for it was a good path and I made brisk progress all the way down to the River Lair. Here my path theoretically met up with our outbound path which would lead me easily back to the car. Unfortunately between my path and the other path lay the River Lair which was in spate and there was no easy way across. Never mind, I had prudently read the wise words of Cameron McNeish in his guidebook: '...be warned, the River Lair can rise quickly in spate making a crossing difficult. In such cases you'll have to follow the west bank of the river all the way back to Achnashellach.' Cameron talks a lot of nonsense sometimes. I bet he never tried this. There was no path at all on the west bank of the river so I had to break my own trail, descending slowly because of bog, heather and fading light. Further down the river is channelled into an increasingly steeply-sided gorge where I found the waters raging along leaving absolutely no chance of climbing down those rocky sides and making a crossing. Grimly I carried on, fighting my way through the tangled swathes of heather until I came to a point where the land narrowed to the point of a vee as another large stream joined the main river. This tributary was similarly swollen and fast-running and it too flowed through a steep-sided slash in the landscape. I was getting a tad worried now for I was quite done in after the climbs, the wind and the difficult return trek. I really didn't want to have to return upstream again now in the near dark. In the end there was nothing for it but to attempt the tributary. I had a very hard time of it with much desperate slithering down and scrambling up, hauling myself up by grabbing at roots, branches and heather. Still at last I made it. And that's when I met the rhododendrons. I was in the outer fringes of the forested area now and knew I must be less than a mile from the road, the car and safety. Aye, well less than a mile can be a very long way. The rhododendrons had escaped from some garden somewhere, sometime and had spread out forming an absolutely impassable barrier to my further progress. In daylight I might have been ok but by now the shadows were all around me and I could make out nothing but darker shapes within darkness; distances were unjudgeable, chasms, rocks and monsters invisible.
I tried bulling directly through the bushes but it was impossible and I worried about taking my eyes out on unseen branches. I had to retreat and found a small clearing with a telegraph pole in it. It was pitch black now and I was exhausted, cold and running short of options. I tried ringing Andrew whereupon a telephone in Ramsbottom must have started tinkling - I'd got his home phone number programmed in but not his mobile! Oops. The possibility of spending the night here was now beginning to look rather strong and I thought I'd better try and ring Trisha to let her know I was alright. Well, alright-ish. I rang her up and discovered that telling her I was stuck on a freezing Scottish mountainside at night didn't actually reassure her. With a mixture of exasperation and concern she told me that if I didn't immediately ring the Mountain Rescue service she would. Although I was reluctant to ring them up I was secretly rather glad she'd forced the issue. I rang 999 and the police took the details including my precise location from my GPS. Of course my torch was sitting on the bed at home where I'd put it whilst packing so I was completely in the dark and whenever I put something down I had trouble finding it again. Also when I took my gloves off my hands quickly lost all feeling and I had trouble operating things and fastening zips. I carefully donned all my layers and got out my emergency bivvy bag - basically a large, orange plastic bag. Quite useful really. I got inside it, held the top shut and it kept the brief rain shower out and held some warmth in. I sat there numbly, thinking how surreal it all was to be sitting there inside an orange plastic bag with my trousers on back to front. After a surprisingly short time, however, I heard a 'Hallooo' and sticking my head out of the bag saw a light flashing some way off. This was Chris with his dog, Midge. He was a good chap was Chris, a member of the Torridon Mountain Rescue team and also SARDA, the search and rescue dogs organisation. He too had trouble getting through the rhododendrons but eventually found a way and then guided me out by circling round further west.
He told me he was a stalker and lived quite close by which was why he had been able to respond so promptly to the call. Midge the dog had a luminous green light strapped to his back and you could see him dashing about here and there enjoying the adventure and the freedom of it all. We reached the railway line and from there were able to walk back along the tracks to Achnashellach and the car. Andrew was ok and waiting there for us. It turned out it was just as well it was me who had got into trouble because his phone (Virgin) couldn't get a signal in that area and he would have been unable to summon any help. The police turned up to take our details, having driven all the way over from Portree on the Isle of Skye for the purpose. There was a stocky bloke called Richard and another one who hailed from Skelmersdale originally. They were both very friendly and nice about everything. It was 9.00 by now so we drove down to Loch Carron and booked in at the first hotel we came to - the Loch Carron Hotel (£35). They'd stopped serving meals by this time but the landlady kindly made us a cheese sandwich each and I had a whisky to warm myself up. There was a band called 'BlackRock Ceilidh' (see here ) playing in the hotel bar - they had a nice blonde with an electric fiddle - so we unwound from the troubles of the day by listening to 'Whisky in the Jar', playing a hand or two of crib and guzzling a few pints of the Red Cuillin.
The following day the rain was sluicing down and in truth I felt too drained to do another hill anyway. Andrew's leg was still sore too so we opted for discretion and drove south, stopping briefly to enjoy the delights of the Loch Ness Monster Exhibition at Drumnadrochit. You appreciate such diversions when it's pissing down in Scotland. Later we paused at Killiecrankie where Andrew had a walk round the Soldier's Leap while I dozed in the car; finally we ended up in Crieff at the Comelybank Guest House (£27). Had a rather poor vegetable curry at Abbi's and a few pints of Ossian at a hotel whose name I've forgotten. There we played dominoes - it took us five games to realise that the 6:2 domino was missing. | ||||||||||||
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