Over The Hill

This Corbett, which is only one metre short of a Munro, lies in a very remote and beautiful area, the Knoydart Peninsula, and there are different routes into the start, from Inverie in the west or from the end of Loch Quoich road at Kinlochhourn in the east but these involve very long walks to the start, so we chose the shortest, and easiest, and arguably the one which made the day an adventure. We chose to take the boat from Arnisdale to Barrisdale with the boatman, Peter Fletcher, a charming local man who had worked abroad as well as in Inverness and who was full of chat. Involving a third party always seems to add frustration to organising a trip, and this was no exception. Several messages left on answer machines and at last a date and time was made to meet up in Arnisdale. The high pressure was still settled over Scotland but as the days wore on while we waited for a reply, the cloud cover was mentioned more often, but we decided we would chance it.

We camped overnight at Morvich and set off early for the hour’s drive to meet Peter for a 9am start. The sea was calm so the trip took only 15 minutes, as he likes to drive his boat quite fast; we hopped ashore at Barrisdale and were ready to start about 9.20am. The walk to the start of the hill is along a good track passing the campsite at Barrisdale. The Bothy is open, £5 per night, with two rooms with bare bunkbeds and a kitchen area and toilet, but I think camping looked the better option. There has been money spent at Barrisdale with solar panels and a new road to a dam on the Allt na Muicraidh and new buildings. We passed the “White House” at Ambraigh, which looked very sad. I have stayed there in the past when the Carn Dearg club had a weekend meet there, and I remember the generator used to thump all the time.

After crossing the bridge over the River Barrisdale we continued on the track taking the left fork to our hill, and crossed another bridge and onto a good stalkers’ path. The cloud was down but we were still hopeful it would lift. The path climbs into Gleann Unndalain and eventually onto Loch Quoich, but we left the path at the edge of the forest and climbed along the fenceline. The grass was long and already our trousers were quite wet. We looked back to Barrisdale Bay from where we had come – the tide was out and there was a vast expanse of sandy shore. We climbed steeply into the clag following faint paths and deer tracks which came and went, and put jackets on but not waterproof trousers, as it was now warm. It is a lovely hill with grassy bits and rocky outcrops but we could see nothing of it ahead, and just had to keep to the NW ridge as best as we could. The ridge comes to a flatish area and we couldn’t see the top but we just kept going turning slightly left and climbing over rocky outcrops until we saw the cairn. Hooray it was 12.30pm so 3 hours from leaving the boat – fast, but there was no stopping to look around at the views! We decided to have lunch and wait and see if the sun would clear the cloud. It was trying, very trying. The temperature rose, and it got very warm but the cloud was still around us, and so we just took summit photos anyway. Les had printed out the names of hills that we could have seen had it been clear, as we both really wanted to spot Ben Aden which we had climbed three years previously, again in the clag, but no such luck.

We had asked to be picked up at 4pm, and when there is a deadline to meet, this adds a bit of stress to the day, but we had three hours to make the descent and reckoned we would be in time to meet Peter, who had said in the morning he didn’t like to wait for his clients! Climbing in the clag is easier than descending, and we made a few errors on the way back and probably zigzagged a bit more than we would have done had we been able to see. At 2.30pm we came out of the cloud and at last could see our route off and the Bay again with the tide now in. The old Caledonian Pine trees were beautiful, as were the rowan trees full of berries – the other flora were scabious and the fauna was four sheep, one frog, and possibly some deer in the far distance, so not much.

We made it to the jetty at 3.30pm and were relieved. We watched cormorants diving and spotted two herons, and though we were disappointed not to have had views, the hill is very interesting and we enjoyed our day. On the way back to Barrisdale, Peter spotted splashes in the water to the west, and turned the boat towards the activity on the water, asking if we’d like to see the dolphins. Well, what a treat we had. The pod must have been 100 strong he said, and we watched the dolphins jumping right out of the water and swimming alongside and around the boat. They are delightful creatures and enjoyed “playing” around the boat. How lucky were we. My photo evidence is pretty poor, but we felt very privileged to have seen the dolphins, and felt this end to our day made up for no views. Perhaps I’ll go again one day, and I can’t say that for many of the other Corbetts we have climbed.