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Carn Liath Stob Poite Coire Ardair Creag Meagaidh Map Stayed Kinlochleven, £16. Very hot, clear and still. Just wearing T-shirts at the tops. Got burnt - must get a sunhat. Saw a ptarmigan and 4 dottrell. And that's all the notes I made, but here is Andrew's version, in his own words: Very arduous circuit but with exceptionally clear views in all directions. The popular path is up the corrie to 'The Window' but we gained access to the tops at Carn Liath, only leaving them after looking down the sheer drop at Sron a Ghoire. At this point, after some 5.5 hours on the mountain, we made a serious mistake, dropping down ESE across what we took to be easy terrain instead of staying with the path. It was very hard work coming down. I ended up grovelling along the banks of the Allt Bealach a Ghoire, where there was no path and finally abandoned any concern about wet, paddling through the mouth of the Allt Coire Ardair to get to the A86! Eight hours - 10.5 miles. Drove at great speed to Fort William for a meal then round the coast to Loch Leven and Ballachulish, a location I recall from travelling there on my Scottish Railrover of summer 1965. Three compartment coaches with about as many passengers up from Oban - a long wait, then back. Slate quarries finished in 1955 here and local gravestones are made from it. The road to Kinlochleven Ian and I encountered on his Vespa SS180 in 1966 when there was no Ballachulish Bridge and for seven miles or so you could see the road you'd just been on through the rain on the other side of Loch Leven. Kinlochleven is an industrial town, 100 people working at Alcan, though most now contracted since the firm is to close and transfer production to the Fort William plant. Water levels are all important to power the furnaces - there are reservoirs. The one at Kinlochleven is currently 93 feet deep, adequate for this summer even if it proves to be a third very good one. Last year the level dropped to 13 feet - this would have threatened the closure of the plant. All this information came from Mrs Elsie ROBERTSON of Garvhein Rd, where we stayed, along with assorted walkers who were covering the West Highland Way - one couple from Cannock Chase, another from Bedfordshire, and a third from Lincs. We'd gone into Kinlochleven last night to the Antler Bar, signposted down the side street, Nevis Road - corrugated roof, single storey, like an army hut. 'Game of pool?' a tattooed local asks. 'Game of darts?' Then the Tailrace Inn - like all other property in the town whitewashed and new. All 60s and 70s I imagine. The town is utterly dwarfed by its mountain surrounds. When Alcan closes perhaps in two or three years, it will become a mountaineering centre, with the old carbon works becoming an indoor mountain school. |
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