Creag Meagaidh

Wednesday 17th September 2008

The weather during this holiday was turning out to be rather poor. After the disappointing weather on Sunday it just got worse and worse with Sunday turning out to have the best weather of the week! On Tuesday it rained all day however I didn’t do any walking on that day as I had spent the day with my parents who were holidaying in Fort William. On the Wednesday the weather was a little better as it didn't rain, but there was still low cloud to contend with and it seemed very cold. I took advantage of having a car during this holiday to walk up a mountain that is off the bus routes, but can easily be climbed from a car parked on the A86 between Fort William and Aviemore: Creag Meagaidh. The whole valley to the east of this mountain is a nature reserve and it looks wonderful for it, and made walk in a delightful past deciduous trees, bracken and heather. It was a lovely place to walk whatever the weather and the reason for that was the path. I know I usually berate manufactured paths and this was seemingly the epitome of manufactured paths as it was a gravel path with bridges over the frequent streams made of blue plastic tubes with a ditch dug on the high side of the path to deflect water away. It was cleverly constructed and an essential path as if it wasn’t there then I would have been walking through a boggy mess of heather and mud. I really appreciated that path as it took all the effort out of the walking and left me free to enjoy my surroundings. These paths are good in such places as there is no fun to be had in wading through a quagmire, but where heavily constructed paths, especially steps, do spoil my fun is on lovely, rocky, mountainous terrain. The well-made path eventually brought me to a small loch, Lochan a’Coire, at the foot of immense cliffs below the summit plateau, where the low clouds seemed to add a brooding air to the place that probably wouldn't exist in better weather. The constructed path stops at the lake and I continued on a more challenging path that climbs steeply up the hillside to a gap called the Window or Uinneag Coire Ardair. This high pass lies between two Munros and it seemed a pity not to take in the smaller, northern Munro, Stob Poite Coire Ardair, since I was there and the summit isn’t far from the Window. Climbing up, I crossed the bleak top to the summit cairn where I had my lunch before returning to the window. I now resumed the text book route up onto the summit plateau by a good clear path which sadly disappeared once I was at the top and left me to walk across the vast, thousand metre high plateau in dense cloud trying to find the summit. With my GPS in one hand, map in the other and a compass round my neck I set off towards the summit.

Despite at one point going in the wrong direction I eventually reached the large summit cairn of Creag Meagaidh at the height of 1128m. Once I had successfully crossed the plateau I had to do so again in the other direction heading towards the top of the cliffs that overlook the lochan. My descent across the plateau was arrested by a rise to the subsidiary top of Puist Coire Ardair from where the terrain narrowed to a ridge that extended eastwards above the precipitous cliffs above Lochan a’Coire to the top of Sròn a Ghoire. Ridge walking is simply the best form of hill walking as it produces maximum gain from little effort. With a minimum of effort required once you are on the ridge, the stunning views continue along with an awesome sense of being up high, which persists even when you can’t see anything, like on this day. From the top of Sròn a Ghoire I descended steeply down the grassy slope and picked up a faint path beside the stream, Allt Bealach a Ghoire. Although wet underfoot and not always clear I was able to follow this path all the way down off the mountain and eventually join a track which crossed the river by a bridge and brought me back to my car.

Although it didn’t rain on this walk, I had low cloud all day that spoilt any views I may have got while at the top and it was cold, but despite the poor weather I did enjoy the walk. After the wet weather of the last couple of days I was almost happy to keep this sort of weather as anything would be better than the rain I had been enduring. There was a relaxing path through the valley at the start and then a more exhilarating path on the climb up to the Window. It was also fun trying to navigate across the summit plateau in dense cloud which tested my skill with a GPS and map. On a negative note my boots appeared to leak quite badly. I’d had them for only about a year and so far they had been fabulous and yet on this walk my feet were soaked and worse, frozen. There hardly seems to be anything wrong with them except this so it’s rather frustrating to have this problem. Despite my boots, this was a great walk across some wonderful terrain and on good paths, which seems to make all the difference.