Màm Sodhail and Carn Eighe

Wednesday 4th June 2014

The day before this walk I had headed up Glen Affric from the village of Cannich until near Affric Lodge I took a track that climbs up the side of the valley and once over the ridge led me down broad, boggy slopes to the bottom of Gleann nam Fiadh where I camped beside the river in a lovely spot. The weather that evening was fabulous and as I went to bed I was hopeful that the weather would be just as good the following day for a walk up the two big mountains at the top of the valley: Màm Sodhail and Carn Eighe. These are not just the highest mountains in the Glen Affric area, they are the highest mountains in Britain north of the Great Glen. After the many disappointments and setbacks that I suffered on this holiday I really needed to wake up to good weather, and that is what I got although the weather did deteriorate during the course of the day, but while it lasted I was able to enjoy a fabulous high level traverse on the ridge around Gleann nam Fiadh with these two mountains at the head.

When I got out of my tent in the morning there was hardly a cloud in the sky with just a little hill fog at the top of Màm Sodhail and Carn Eighe. I felt astonishingly lucky so after a quick breakfast I set off back up the broad slopes on the track that I had climbed the evening before until I reached the highest point at the top of the ridge where I came off the track and headed across the swampy ground towards the foot of Sgùrr na Lapaich. A slender path took me through the bogs with cairns helpfully marking my route and providing me with a satisfactory passage to the foot of the mountain. Unfortunately when the terrain began to steepen the cairns disappeared, which made things rather more difficult. In the end I followed a small stream, the southern branch of the Allt na Faing, onto a ramp that led me onto the southern slopes just as the clouds that I had hoped would lift from the highest tops actually descended onto Sgùrr na Lapaich.

Annoyingly, instead of the good weather that I had woken to, the cloud gradually built up around the top of the mountains during the morning. Behind me Glen Affric and all things eastward was bathed in sunshine, but the mountains westward were enveloped in cloud. As I reached the top of Sgùrr na Lapaich the clouds lifted slightly to afford me with a view along the ridge towards the still covered mountaintops of Màm Sodhail and Carn Eighe. Across Glen Affric there was a stunning view of the snow-speckled mountains of Kintyre dominated by the radiating ridges of Mullach Fraoch-choire and A ‘Chràlaig. Given its grand crags and isolated location, a good distance from Màm Sodhail, I felt that Sgùrr na Lapaich deserves to be a Munro and in fact Sir Hugh Munro himself added it to his tables, but its status was subsequently revised to that of merely a top and has tragically never been restored to the honour it so rightly deserves.

An intermittent path follows the top of the ridge over Mullach Cadha Rainich as I made my way up to the huge cairn at the top of Màm Sodhail and I was rewarded with a gradual lifting of the clouds so that by the time I reached the top of the Munro I had clear views to all the nearby mountains. It was great to be at the top of such a high mountain despite a low cloud level barely higher than the mountain itself. My eye was constantly being drawn south-west to the snow-speckled northern slopes of the mountains of Kintyre and beyond. This was such a stunning sight that the sunnier views eastwards couldn’t compete due to their lack of high mountains and I felt great to be at the top of a Scottish Mountain surrounded by mountains as far as I could see.

There is an enormous cairn at the top of Màm Sodhail, which Ralph Storer says in the definitive guide to the “100 Best Routes on Scottish Mountains” testifies to its former importance as a survey point during the OS mapping of the Highlands in the 19th Century. A steep descent on an excellent footpath took me down to the col where a less steep ascent brought me up to the top of Carn Eighe. When I reached the top of the Munro I couldn’t help noticing that the mountains to the west and to the north, particularly over Loch Mullardoch, had very dark clouds over them, while the sun shone on the hills to the south and to the east. While having my lunch beside the trig point at the summit I was astonished to see how strong the east-west difference can be, it almost felt like night and day. Rain was falling to the west while the sun was out to the east. The spot where I had camped a couple of days previously near the Mullardoch mountains seemed to be drawing all the rain and keeping it away from me at the top of one of the highest mountains in Britain.

From the top I made my way across easy, grassy slopes to the steep, craggy cliff edge at the top of Stob a’Choire Dhomhain where laid out before me was the excitingly narrow ridge of Stob Coire Dhomhnuill. The ridge, complete with rock towers, provided me with as much scrambling opportunities as I wanted, but I usually took the paths that bypass all the difficulties, which may sound cowardly, but I actually enjoy these high terrace paths, more than I enjoy terrifying myself on rock towers. At the end of the ridge I sat at the top and gazed around in awe of my surroundings. Dark clouds may have been lying to the north but to the south it was sunny and the views were stunning. It is always fabulous being at the top of a mountain when the weather is good and at that moment I didn’t want to leave; this is what I come to Scotland for. Reluctantly I passed over the top of Sron Garbh and climbed very steeply down to the col of Garbh Bhealach.

Ralph Storer here recommends following him, and most walkers, into the corrie and down to the valley. However, it was still quite early so I decided to carry on along the ridge though soon after that the weather started to close in and before I reached the top of the Munro, Tom a’Choinich, it started to rain. With hindsight Ralph Storer was probably right that the onward course would be an anti-climax, but there were some good points including a narrowing of the ridge after Tom a’Choinich Beag and a good footpath after the Munro down the steep ridge to the col. There I finally left the ridge and followed an excellent footpath that I frustratingly kept losing as I followed the Allt Toll Easa back down into the valley where my tent awaited me. Despite the rain that ended the day this was a fabulous walk over some great mountains with stunning views of the mountains of Kintail on excellent footpaths.