River Inver and Glencanisp

Monday 3rd June 2024

With strong to gale force winds over the mountains in West Sutherland on this day it wasn’t practical for me to be walking high so I decided I would keep low and I was surprisingly excited in anticipation of the walk that I had planned. Eagerly, I set off from Achmelvich Beach along the narrow road with my first objective being to get to Lochinver and for that I needed to get around Loch Roe which blocked my way. After a mile along the road I turned right onto a driveway that soon became a stony track and the walk only really became interesting after passing Ardroe Croft. The path now passed through gorgeous moorland sprinkled with many outcrops and decorated with spotted-orchids, but the early morning sunshine beside the coast was now gone so that when the view over Loch Inver appeared before me the iconic Suilven was hiding its head inside clouds. On reaching the bridge over the River Inver I was reminded of why I was not going up a mountain as it was very windy so I soon joined an anglers’ path that follows the river upstream past spectacular rapids over a rock-filled bed in a tree lined landscape that was a beautiful and soothing place to walk.

A fabulous path slowly took me through the gorgeous landscape while several access points for the anglers dropped to the side of the river but I was happy to follow the path that took me past a series of pools until eventually I emerged from the wood and reached the point where the path turns to the right towards Glencanisp. This would have soon returned me back to Lochinver and ended my walk far too quickly so I kept beside the River Inver even though the path was now rough and tricky to follow especially when passing steep ground. Once beyond I was in an area that appeared to have suffered from an extensive fire in recent years and, though the ground plants had now recovered, the larger woody plants appeared lifeless and burnt. Eventually I found a footbridge that took me over the River Inver onto a road and finally onto the main road into Lochinver where I had a mile or two of walking that was rather unpleasant as the passing cars were travelling very fast, but there were two places where an old section of the road, around small hills, provided me with the opportunity to get away from the speeding cars until eventually I reached Little Assynt. There a great path took me through a wonderful landscape of mixed woodland and moorland decorated with many wild flowers including bluebells, stitchworts and spotted-orchids, and the sun came out to accompany me through this delight.

Eventually I reached a viewpoint between Loch Tòrr an Lochain and Loch na h-Innse Fraoich that provided me with a view of the surrounding mountains which still had their heads in clouds and were cloaked in grey shadow. Not far away from me was Quinag which I had started to climb the day before while Suilven was in the distance to the south, but I was especially taken by my immediate surroundings which were immensely beautiful in their setting of rock, tree and lake. After eating my lunch I set off back along the path into the strong cold wind and on reaching the main road I took to a path marked Suileag which I soon found was not as clear as others I had been following this day even losing the path after passing through a gate. When I realised I had to retrace my steps back to the gate and try to follow the path exactly as marked on my map even though there was no trace of it on the ground. Eventually a sort of path materialised though it was faint and tough to follow through a complex terrain slowly heading south, but while climbing between two low hills I realised that the path at one time had been well-engineered as it zigzagged through the terrain. There was no sign of this across the moor, but once I realised this I began to see other traces of what had once been a good path but was now rarely used.

Suilven now dominated the view ahead of me even though it was shrouded in grey clouds as I made my way along the faint but now clear path down the hill, past a string of lochs and up another hill to where Suileag was hiding just beyond. This is a bothy where one can spend the night though facilities including running water do not exist. A work party was there taking an afternoon break so I had a chat with them before taking the much clearer path through Glencanisp where I was spoilt by the views ahead of me towards Loch Druim Suardalain or back towards the imposing bulk of Suilven. I previously came this way in 2010, but the weather on that day had been excellent while on this day the sunshine I had enjoyed at Little Assynt had been short-lived, though there were occasional glimpses to remind me of what could have been. Once I was back in Lochinver I walked around the harbour to the River Inver and retraced my steps back over Ardroe at the end of an amazing walk. The weather actually helped with this walk as, although it was marred by the strong winds, the occasional sunshine and warmth made it an enjoyable walk especially beside the River Inver and then later while passing Suilven which recalled my ascent in 2010. This walk shows you don’t need to go up a mountain to have a good walk.