It was a day of intense loneliness. This is not intended as a complaint but rather as a celebration for it is the emptiness of these rolling hills which gives them their special character. Moreover I love to walk alone and let my thoughts wander as widely as the far horizons.
My thoughts today were sombre for the radio this morning had been dominated by the death of Alison Hargreaves, a person for whom I had felt both admiration and envy. I pondered, as so often before, the limits of acceptable risk. The comparison is ridiculous yet many of my friends would consider that walking alone on Ballencleuch Law was dangerously irresponsible.
The radio had quoted Alison's quoting of a favourite Tibetan proverb, 'better to live one day as a tiger than one thousand years as a sheep'. I thought of my own long standing favourite verse on the same theme, written by Thomas Mordaunt more than two centuries ago,
'Sound, sound the clarion, fill the fife,
Throughout the sensual world proclaim,
One crowded hour of glorious life
Is worth an age without a name.'
Today was definitely a sheep day. The heat seemed to smother the hills and with no breath of wind the smell of ovine excrement hung in the air to emphasise the fact. My feet trod a world of rolling grass while my mind was far away, amongst ice and avalanche on the perilous ridges of K2. The going is mostly easy and today even the boggy bits were totally dry. Comb Law; Rodger Law with its trig point; Ballencleuch Law, the highest by a single metre; Scaw'd Law; all were mainly grass. Only the farthest southern outlier, Glenleith Fell, presented rough heathery terrain and this was the only place where I saw footprints of other walkers in the peat.
Sheil Dod or not Sheil Dod? This was the question which now had to be answered. Donald omitted it but it appears in the 'New Donalds' book as a near miss. To incorporate both this top and Gana Hill into the circuit was a bit tricky. The answer was a beeline, straight across what would usually be a very squelchy col indeed and a slanting line up the side of the ridge. The faintest suspicion of a breeze encouraged a brief refreshment stop on this summit, looking out through the heat haze across the very depleted waters of Daer Reservoir. Then I cut back to the flat unmarked top of Wedder Law.
Gana Hill, although not the highest summit of the day, was the boldest and the best viewpoint, giving a southwards view of rolling ridges similar to that which I remembered enjoying from Queensberry many years ago. Fortunately both this and Earncraig Hill had already been collected for it was now far too hot for comfort and I took the quickest route straight down to the track, the road and the car.
Today our objective was Scaw'd Fell, a hill easily accessed from the Southern Uplands Way along which we approached it from the west. The junction of tracks is exactly on the join of maps 78 and 79 and not shown on either but the track is there and zigzags pleasantly through the trees to the open ridge above. The sea of conifers below accentuates the airiness of this rolling upland clothed in heather and the sort of tufty grass which turns bright orange about this time of year. The highest point is marked only by a stouter fence post although a well built conical cairn lies slightly beyond the top. I wonder whether the strange name is in any way related to that of England's highest summit which some of the older books render as Scawfell.
We returned the same way, stopping for lunch on the north top which gives a rather fine distant view of Moffat, perfectly framed by a pair of forested hills. We sat in brilliant sunshine watching black clouds rolling in from the south as the forecast had predicted.
Our plan was to continue on the Southern Uplands Way and descend by the Selcoth Burn which runs through a spectacular gorge and turns through a right angle below the east ridge of Croft Head, a spot reminiscent of the similar gorge and right angled twist in Water of Caiplich below Cnap Chaochan Aitinn. It was irresistible to climb the hill from here, vainly seeking some recollection of the previous visit, now nothing more in my memory than a tick in the tables. Meanwhile Rowland continued eastwards, visited Over Phawhope bothy and was picked up later at Bodesbeck.
A small track runs up the steep east ridge of Croft Head, suggesting that this is quite a popular ascent; deservedly so for it gives spectacular retrospective views of the gorge and the enormous landslips on the western slopes of Capel Fell. The summit by contrast is flat and undistinguished, the meeting place of three fences and carrying today a pseudo cairn of abandoned fence posts. Scaw'd Fell was conspicuous southwards with the sun glinting on the Solway beyond, the threatened bad weather having apparently stalled over Cumbria.
I plunged straight down to the Crofthead Burn, feeling that a short confrontation with conifers might be preferable to a long drag along the main road. In fact the track has been extended to the edge of the forest and led pleasantly down to Craigieburn, less than a kilometre from the car.
We drove up in torrential rain but by the time we were crossing the bridge at Ballachulish it was brightening up from the west. It dates us, I suppose, that we sometimes feel a regret for the old days of the ferry. At busy times we might elect to drive round through Kinlochleven. Otherwise one could enjoy a rest from driving and perhaps spot a seal or meet an old acquaintance in the queue.
Today we had to content ourselves with the Corran ferry, overlooked by the lovely Sgurr na h-Eanchainne. We parked at the junction of A and B roads north of Beinn Mheadhoin. The map suggested that an approach from the east would be far more exciting but previous investigations had highlighted problems of both parking and access. We went up through bog and tussocks onto the ridge of Meall a'Choire Bheithich, skirted Meall na Greine and finished above the impressive gulf of Coire Ban.
The first thing to be noticed as we reached the trig point was a hideously ugly hut perched right on the ridge at about grid 808505. It was illuminated by lights and so dreadfully incongruous in this situation that for a moment it distracted our appreciation of the panorama from this summit. True, the Glencoe hills, which must often look particularly splendid from here, were swathed in gloomy mist. It was Mull which drew our gaze away from the eyesore, with shafts of sunlight piercing the clouds above Ben More and a conspicuous double peak which was perhaps the Graham, Corra Bheinn and its twin, Cruachan Dearg. A distant glimpse of Rum completed the western panorama whilst away northwards lay a jumble of summits, a mixture of Corbetts and Grahams.
Our western approach, and similar retreat, although rough underfoot and lacking the drama of the eastern ridges, avoided man made intrusions and could hardly have been bettered as a route to enjoy the bellowing of rutting stags.
The gradient eases at about 1000' and the ridge starts to take shape with rocky outcrops replacing grass and bracken. The retrospective views are still exceptional, now revealing the triple summit of Ben Buie, the bay of Loch Buie and an array of distant islands. Just as we reached the top it began to rain and mist swirled in behind us as we continued northwards. Beyond the first steep drop of Meall nan Capull we dropped off towards Coire na Feola but avoided the worst of the going by following deer tracks across onto the lower reaches of the south-east ridge.
From this car park we went straight up the Marilyn, Beinn a'Mhonicag. There was a clear and very steep grassy track through the heather as far as the uppermost of the three parallel roads. Thereafter it became vague and finally petered out altogether so we concluded that few people continue to the top of this hill which gives a splendid distant view of the string of mountains southwards, from Chno Dearg to Ben Nevis with the Grey Corries particularly prominent, freshly brushed with snow. We dropped down the north ridge to a deep and boggy col which I think was one of the escape routes for water back in the ice age. As the glacier receded beyond this point the water behind it was suddenly released, resulting in an abrupt drop in the lake to the level of this col and the formation of a new shoreline.
We crossed straight over and up onto the flat top of Leana Mhor. We had just bought in Nevisport a book which gave both translation and pronunciation of the Gaelic names. The discovery that Leana Mhor means 'big meadow' dissuaded me from suggesting that the easterly one should have been named Leana Bheag. Both are predominantly grassy although their vegetation is not the green grass normally associated with meadows. This long coarse tufty grass turns bright orange at this time of year and apparently thrives in a terrain of bog and peat.
A sharp hailstorm greeted us on the summit but we persisted in our planned figure of eight walk, following the west ridge, encircling Coire Ionndrain and descending to track and road with the slopes of the other Leana Mhor glowing in the dusk and the crescent of a new moon shining through thinning clouds above the snowy ridges of the Grey Corries.
The eastern side of the hill has very impressive cliffs and care is needed to find a way down. We certainly did not take the best route and had a hair-raising descent, alternately sliding gingerly down nearly vertical grass and scrabbling around in a loose and slippery stream bed. It would perhaps have been easier to come up this way since we saw a relatively easy rake from the west ridge of Binnein Shios which is a much tamer affair. Red deer were reluctantly moving up the slopes ahead of us, roaring and pausing to see if they really needed to abandon the tussocky area which they clearly enjoyed far more than we did.
Higher up the ridge becomes better defined and leads over two false tops to the summit cairn at the far end. The eastern slopes once again are rough and craggy, here with the extra hazard of trees. We took the easy option however and retraced our steps down the west ridge, with the rocky outline of Binnein Shuas silhouetted against a splendid panorama of lochs and distant snow flecked mountains.
So accustomed had we become to solitary hills that we were quite startled to see another walker coming up the ridge. He seemed equally surprised. It transpired that he was doing the same circuit, but rather faster for he soon overtook us on the descent as we made for a gap where the forest had been felled and joined the track along the shore of Loch Laggan. The loch was totally calm, reflecting the autumn colours and a line of pines silhouetted against the setting sun, a lovely end to an exciting eight hour circuit.
Next day, before driving home, we climbed Creag na Doire Duibhe, going up by the east ridge. The sudden unfolding of the western vista revealed a remarkably craggy little hill, conspicuous amongst the other more rounded summits. 'What on earth is that spectacular peak?', I began, before realising, with delight, that it was Binnean Shuas.
my homepage