Over The Hill

I had been looking forward to this walk since it first appeared in the programme; it was going to offer something different, not least the fact that the start point can only be reached by taking the train on the West Highland Railway to the highest and most remote station on the rail network, Corrour, in the vast wilderness 0f Rannoch Moor.

We drove as far as Bridge of Orchy and picked up the Glasgow train as it passed through for the short 30 minute journey across the moor to Corrour and its remote platform, station house, and, a short distance away, the small hutted youth hostel, the only evidence of habitation in this wilderness.

Our walk started as we left the railway platform and headed east along the well maintained estate track towards Loch Ossian, just over a kilometre away, before doubling back on the old "Road to the Isles" and then leaving the track to strike north northeast over the grassy lower slopes of the southwest ridge of Beinn na Lap.

Corrour station, sitting at an altitude of 400m, is a great height advantage, and makes this one of the easier Munros to climb as far as total ascent climbed is concerned. However, no Munro is ever that easy, and to make this one a little more difficult the MWIS had forecast winds of 30-40mph, with gusts approaching 50mph, and as we stood on the platform at Bridge of Orchy awaiting our train, the wind was certainly living up to the forecast, and bitingly cold, it looked like we could be in for a difficult day ahead.

As we started up the ridge, the wind gained in strength, but thankfully never really reached the levels forecast, although it did remain extremely cold throughout the day. The lower slopes of Beinn na Lap are easy grassy slopes which gradually give way to heather and eventually, once on the crown of the broad whale-back ridge, rock. We reached the snow line at around 650m height, nothing of significance, although the mixture of ice and snow on the rocks did make the going rather slippery in places.

As we topped the ridge and reached the broad summit plateau we encountered much larger areas of snow that were completely frozen hard and, indeed, the small lochan which sits just below the summit cairn was frozen to such a degree that we all tramped across it on our direct approach to the cairn. The summit cairn itself presented a picture of ice encrusted rocks, looking quite beautiful in the grey light.

The exposed summit was bitterly cold, and we stayed there just long enough for a few pictures and to decide which route we would take to make our return to Corrour. The usual way is simply to reverse the outward route, but as you will know, if you are a reader of my reports, that's not how we like to do things. And so we decided to drop directly off the summit ridge, heading generally south and aiming for the tree line of the forested area which runs along the northern shoreline of Loch Ossian, and thence through the forest to rejoin the estate track on the loch side.

We knew from the maps that the southern slopes would be somewhat steeper than the ridge line we had ascended, but they also proved to be holding a greater amount of snow than the ridge, and so we had an interesting descent as we zigzagged across some wide, and well frozen, slabs of snow as we made our descent towards the tree line. We easily found our way around what was a very old and broken deer fence at the forest boundary, with gaps so large that the deer were happily grazing in areas of the forest as we approached down the lower grassy slopes in the final stages of our descent.

A firebreak offered a clear but boggy path through the forest for those of us happy to tackle a bit of mud. For some though, the forest turned out to be a bit of a nightmare as they tried to avoid the mud and just got deeper and deeper into the forest which eventually swallowed them up and gave them a right thrashing before throwing them out onto the road beyond. All because of a bit of mud - Laugh? Off course we didn't!

All back together again on the roadside and with plenty of time to spare until our train was due to depart from Corrour, we found ourselves a nice sheltered bay to take a leisurely break and just enjoy the solitude and beauty of the loch side. A slow walk back to Corrour and the well stocked little cafe in the beautiful stations house for some refreshments before boarding the train for the return journey to Bridge of Orchy.

A great day, wonderful hill, and a very enjoyable experience - thanks Lindsay.