[Trip Index] [Munro Index] [Home] 20th May 2005   Slioch Map Rain was forecast for the afternoon so it was another early start. I'd parked the car in the car park at Incheril and set off along the path by the Kinlochewe River at 7.15; at this time there was some cloud just obscuring the tops but there was no rain. Slioch - the Spear The route in from Incheril Just over a mile further along, as I approached Loch Maree, I encountered a maze of streams and islands and ended up getting on the wrong path. What you should do is keep all the watery bits on your left but there are some paths there which lure the innocent aside into the delta - so I ended up having to reverse my tracks a bit. I finally got past that, however, and carried on along the banks of Loch Maree to the Abhainn an Fhasaigh, the stream which leads up Gleann Bianasdail. A wooden bridge took me across the burn and then, turning away from the loch, I followed the path NE up the glen. To my right the stream was full and belting along quite spectacularly. Gleann Bianasdail I walked up the glen for about a mile then came to a stream on the left (just past a stream on the right) where a path turns away from the valley bottom and climbs NW up the steep grass-and-heather hillside. On reaching the top of the hillside the ground levels out and the rather indistinct path led me into an enormous bowl littered with rocks and streams and peaty ground. Over on the left-hand side of this bowl was my way up to the ridge. I aimed for the first col past Sgurr Dubh (actually I should have carried on a bit further and ascended to the next col thereby missing a small climb and having a much better path) and a short but steep, grassy climb brought me onto the ridge from where it was an easy walk to the 2 lochans. The great bowl of the Slioch watershed According to Cameron's guide the route passes between these 2 lochans and then goes directly up the facing crags. This looked horribly steep to me though (it's not quite so bad when you get up close) so I followed a path round to the right of the lochans which then zig-zagged, still fairly steeply, up the face of the hillside. It was a bit of a slog but at the top once over a small prominence a short walk took me to the final hillock and the trig point on top of it (11.15). Happily the top was now clear of cloud as I walked across to the adjacent top, of identical height, whose summit is marked by a small cairn (11.25). The summit mound At the top It was looking a bit dark on the nearby hills so I didn't linger beyond calling Trisha to say I'd got to the top. I now decided to continue the circuit rather than retrace my footsteps down the steep craggy bit. Accordingly I walked on along a grassy ridge which narrowed to an interesting rocky clamber and brought me eventually to the Top, Sgurr an Tuill Bhain. The ridge walk to Sgurr an Tuill Bhain Over the Top the path led down into the level 'bowl' - during the descent I saw 2 people climbing the craggy face beyond the lochans, another 3 were further back on the col and another 2 were opposite me on the other side of the bowl. At the start of the descent there were a couple of brief showers. I made my way back down to the glen and retraced the outbound route back to Incheril. Then about a quarter of a mile before reaching the car park heavy rain began to fall; didn't matter though as I was only out in it for 5 minutes.