Over The Hill

The Scottish Mountaineering Club hillwalkers guide "The Munros" says "Seana Bhraigh, which occupies a remote situation in true wilderness country ... ... ... competes with A' Mhaighdean and Lurg Mhor for the title of the most distant Munro"; it also gives a warning that "in poor visibility very careful navigation is required" beyond the end of the stalkers track. Having now completed this walk, I can only second their opinion and advice, this is not a walk to be undertaken without due consideration to fitness, weather and timing. That said, it is a brilliant walk, and I hope you enjoy reading the report that follows.

The weather forecast for the weekend was for clear skies with some cloud, winds of 30kph, summit temperatures just below freezing and expected daylight of about 12 hours. The weather sounded good, our only point of concern was the amount of daylight, as most estimates for the walk were all for 10 to 12 hours, not leaving us much lee-way if we were on the limit of timings. Nevertheless, we booked into the Forest Way Bunkhouse at Lael Forest, just a few kilometres along the road from our start point and made the long drive from Balloch to Inverlael late afternoon on Friday, for a 6 o'clock up and away on Saturday morning.

We stuck to plan, up at 6 - that wasn't difficult with one iPhone playing Dolly Parton's "9 to 5 - "Tumble outta bed And stumble to the kitchen Pour myself a cup of ambition Yawnin, stretchin ... ..." and one screaming "It's six o'clock get up" - and on our way to the car parking area just south of the Inverlael Bridge.

The initial section of the walk is on good forest track and heads east up through Lael Forest towards the ruins at Glensguaib, although, due to "Forest Operations" we had to make a minor diversion, crossing over the river to a parallel track before re-crossing back to the planned track just before reaching Glensguaib. The early morning weather was not as expected, the promised clear skies were full of low grey clouds hanging around the 600m level on the surrounding hilltops.

At Glensguaib, we left the good forest track and swung north east up an old and eroded forest track which climbs up through a cleared forest area towards the gate at the forest boundary, leading us onto a stalkers track over the open heather hillside on the lower slopes of Druim na Saobhaidhe. As we climbed, the air was full of the bellowing roar of rutting stags, and we spotted one, high on a ridge to the north of us; the sound of the rutting stags was to hang around the hills for most of the day, and we made a few other sightings of deer on the distant hillsides.

As the Druim na Saobhaidhe ridge levels off, the stalkers path dips down to the waters of the Allt Gleann a'Mhadaidh and a river crossing that we achieved with some careful choice of boulders to leap onto to bridge the gap between its banks. The path then continues east alongside the river and over the rising broad hillside towards Coire an Lochain Sgeirich where it turns east and leads you into the glen and past a series of small lochans flanked on both sides by steep grey stone crags.

The path through Coire an Lochain Sgeirich rises to 750m and ends in a broad, open wilderness of grassy hillocks, peat hags and small lochans, at which point the stalkers path eventually fades and finally disappears. From this point on, careful navigation is needed, and the choice of route is very much down to the individual. We had previously decided that at an appropriate point towards the end of the stalkers path we would head north east towards a prominent gully lying between the 804m (806m on OS 50,000) Meall a'Choire Ghlais and the un-named 778m top, down which we would descend towards the cliffs above Cadha Dearg. Visibility at this point varied between reasonable to poor as the clouds and mist drifted over us in waves, giving us brief periods when visual navigation was possible, and periods where we were navigating via compass as our objectives were bathed in mist.

We descended the gully and contoured our way around the edge of the impressive cliffs on the ridge above Cadha Dearg towards the Gate of Ca'-derg, at which point the mist and cloud thickened as we continued north up the steep slopes towards the un-named 906m top, our reference point for which to turn and head towards the summit plateau. Good navigation dropped us smack on the small, insignificant cairn marking the 906m top, and, after a quick check on our new bearing, we set off towards Seana Bhraigh, and were rewarded with a brief clear period, during which we detoured towards the cliff edge below the summit to take the opportunity of some photos of the cliffs and lochans around Creag an Duine and Loch Luchd.

The clear spell lasted just long enough for a visual approach to the low walled wind shelter marking the summit of Seana Bhraigh before closing in once again, with the accompanying rain now turning to snow, the first of the year, not enough to stay on the ground, but snow nevertheless. So, 5½ hours after leaving Inverlael Bridge we were huddled in the wind shelter having lunch, our first real break since setting of, and very welcome it was too.

This is an out & back walk, so our return was to be a reverse of our outbound route, which, apart from our descent from Seana Bhraigh to the Gate of Ca'-derg which was again in mist and cloud, was pretty uneventful, and conducted with a degree of self-satisfaction at having achieved our objective, and Alan's 281st Munro, only 2 more to go and that's his "bagging" days over.

Seana Bhraigh is not a difficult mountain to climb, height is gained very gradually, and the forest tracks and stalkers paths make for good, if sometimes very wet going. The ground beyond Coire an Lochain Sgeirich is pathless, and certainly requires skillful navigation. However, this is a wonderful days walking, which we were extremely pleased to complete in 10½ hours and no head torches required.

A short drive back to the bunkhouse and we were ready for an evening of "home-cooking", feet up and discussing the days walk while planning tomorrows - a Corbett with the longest name yet, Beinn Liath Mhor a'Ghiubhais Li, which Dave, a fellow bunkhouse resident had planned and we were going to tag along - all very relaxing and an excellent end to an excellent day. Many thanks to my companions, Lindsay, Lawrie and Alan