Over The Hill

Parking on a spur of the old road, our first views of Beinn na h-Uamha where of a cloud covered hillside as we crossed the old stone bridge over the River Gour before turning onto the worn track on the south side of the river and heading towards Loch nan Gabhar. Almost immediately we stopped to ponder why a very solid concrete dam spanned the river at the head of the loch; there were no obvious workings or building to suggest its use, nor why it had a very deliberate breach in the centre of the span, rendering it now totally useless. Another task for Google I think!

For the next 4½kms the rough, and often wet track leads deep into Glen Gour, without gaining any height whatsoever, having left the bridge at 10 MASL, you arrive at the point where you want to cross the River Gour still at 10 MASL; Beinn na h-Uamha may be the lowest of the Corbetts, but you have to climb every 762m of its height before gaining the summit.

Across the river we headed for an obvious gully running up the south east ridge, which proved to be an awkward ascent due to the craggy nature of the rocks, not helped by deep grasses and bracken blocking any route other than by scrambling up the nearest piece of rock; and to make it a little more difficult, there was now a heavy drizzle to contend with. However, once clear of this section of the climb, at about the 200m height, the bracken and long grass is left behind, although a little more scrambling was to come before we gained the 470m top of Stob an Uillt Dharaich.

In a mixture of intermittent clear skies, drizzle and very heavy rain, we made our way along the broad ridge, weaving around, or climbing over the many rocky steps that bar the route towards the main summit, at 762m just making the bottom of the Corbett tables in height. The neighbouring top, Sgurr a'Chaorainn, 1m lower, at 761m is the highest of the Grahams, and we did consider continuing round to include this top, however, we discounted this option as the rough terrain would have added at least another 2 possibly 3 hours to what was already going to be a long day.

And so we decided to continue west for a short distance to the un-named lochan that lies around the 700m height, which required some compass work, the rain and low cloud having returned, reducing the visibility to little more that a few metres. Flowing south from this lochan, a small stream runs steeply down to join the River Gour, some 650m below. We made use of this stream to guide us down the initial stages of our descent, until we were below the cloud base, and could visually see our route onwards to the banks of the River Gour. Across the river, we once again picked up the main track on which we had started along the glen for our return back to our starting point at Sallachan.

Thanks Dave, and all for your company, Beinn na h-Uamha may well be the lowest of the Corbetts, but it is a big day out, and a great walk.

Google Update: Apparently the dam was built in about 1908 by the MacLeans of Ardgour for nothing more than to increase the volume of water to improve the fishing in the loch.