An Caisteal

Monday 23rd May 2022

I have had a problem with Scottish mountains for many years. While I love being at the top of a mountain, I am highly dependent on the weather for my enjoyment and the weather in Scotland is notoriously poor. I tried to exorcize this demon at Easter and I was quite successful, though this was mainly because the weather was good. Now, I was back in Scotland and the weather was poor again, so my demons were back. I was staying in the Youth Hostel at Crianlarich and hoped to go up some of the Munros that are to the south of the village, but it was drizzly with low cloud and I didn’t want to go up a mountain in those conditions. I walk purely for fun and not to challenge myself or complete a list, so at the start of this day I was really unsure what I was going to do as even though there are short walks in the area, there is nothing that would occupy me for the day. Eventually I decided I would climb the path through Bogle Glen to the junction on the West Highland Way for Crianlarich. The usual path into the village descends east from the junction and this is the path that I have taken previously while the Bogle Glen path descends north, is steeper and is not recommended. Since I’d not taken it before I thought I’d climb it, however this path is notoriously boggy and the rain was not helping with that, plus all the trees to the left of the path have recently been felled and have left an ugly scar on the hillside with the new tree guards not helping.

Once I reached the junction on the West Highland Way I had a problem of what to do next, but first I had to get past the large number of people who were blocking the path and only after I had negotiated my way past them could I set off south down the West Highland Way. When I was in Crianlarich in 2015 I had also planned to go up some of the nearby mountains until rain again stopped my plans, so on that occasion I walked along the West Highland Way to Benglas Farm Campsite, visited a nearby waterfall and walked back again. The one thing I didn’t want to do now was a repeat of that walk and yet that is what I found myself doing. Even though it hadn’t been windy in Crianlarich, it was quite windy on this exposed path, which made me even less keen on going up a mountain, however it had stopped raining and there was even a small patch of blue in the sky. I didn’t want to be walking on the West Highland Way as I wanted to be going up mountains, but the weather was not right for that, though as I looked across the valley towards the mountains at the head of Glen Falloch part of me was desperate to be going up those mountains.

An important point is that even though I enjoy being at the top of a mountain, I don’t enjoy climbing mountains so I prefer to have a good footpath that will ease the gradient as much as possible, but there isn’t a good footpath up these mountains and that was putting me off. For now, I was on the West Highland Way and I was impressed with the quality of the path, which was certainly better than had been the case when I first did the trail in 2004 on my first ever walking holiday in Scotland. However, the footpath soon degenerated into the more familiar track that I remembered from previously and was totally waterlogged and required me to wade through the water as I passed dozens of people coming up the West Highland Way, which is now more popular than ever. Eventually I descended to the valley bottom and walked beside the River Falloch until after crossing the river I finally turned off the West Highland Way to take a track that slowly climbs the hillside. An idea had come to my mind of attempting to climb An Caisteal, which is one of the mountains around the head of Glen Falloch, even though there is no path. The track I was on crosses the slopes of Stob Glas to the Allt Andoran stream where a small dam collects water for a hydroelectric scheme, but from there on I had to make my own way up the hill.

Slowly, I struggled up the pathless, boggy hillside until eventually I had to stop for a rest during which I had my lunch and it started raining. While wearily sitting on the side of the hill looking across the valley I wondered what I was doing there as I was not enjoying this. I was supposed to be on holiday, so what was doing here? By the time I had finished my lunch the rain had stopped and the sun had come out, which refreshed my spirits so I decided to keep going and soon the gradient eased with the view behind me opening out and the sun shining in the valley. Despite the mountain resolutely clinging to cloud, things were beginning to look good and spurred me on to keep climbing the hill bypassing the top of Stob Glas to reach Bealach na Bàn Leacainn where the terrain began to steepen and become more craggy while a faint path inconsistently led the way. As I plunged into the clouds and the weather worsened, I kept climbing and eventually reached the summit ridge where I found a clear footpath. With strong winds assailing me, I turned left onto the path up to a cairn, though not the summit, as the clear path took me across a saddle and up to another cairn that must surely be the summit of An Caisteal.

I had previously climbed An Caisteal in 2005 along with two other Munros in the area, but on that occasion I did not do the northern ridge of An Caisteal down Twistin Hill, so I was keen to do that ridge now, however it was very windy and this ruined the experience. Although there was an excellent footpath with some simple scrambling, the wind was strong enough to be distracting, which is a shame as I have wanted to walk along this ridge for a long time, ever since 2005. Once I was below the clouds, I saw that it was now more overcast than earlier with no sign of the sunshine as I slowly made my way along the ridge to reach Sròn Gharbh at the end where the path disappeared and the terrain steepens with the ground underfoot becoming very boggy. Veering to my right I headed down to the track that runs beside the River Falloch and down that to eventually reach the A82 trunk road, which I walked beside all the way back to Crianlarich. This was not a good walk although there were some good moments on good paths, but the weather was not good enough for me even though it wasn’t as bad as feared or forecast. A lack of good footpaths up the mountain and strong winds while on the mountain unfortunately ruined the walk for me.