Christmas in Glen Coe III: the Hillwalk Terminator

Check out this for a summit forecast:

• Sunday: Heavy rain, winds 60mph, visibility very poor, temp 3°C
• Monday: Heavy rain, winds 15mph, visibility very poor, temp 4°C
• Tuesday: Heavy rain, winds 40mph, visibility very poor, temp 5°C
• Wednesday: Light rain, winds 40mph, visibility very poor, temp 5°C
• Thursday: Light rain, winds 20mph, visibility very poor, temp 3°C
• Friday: Light rain, winds 30mph, visibility very poor, temp 3°C
• Saturday: Light snow, winds 25mph, visibility poor, temp 1°C

It was the third year in a row that we’d chosen to spend Christmas in Glencoe in the hope of bagging some winter hills. But, as we’ve discovered, hoping for good weather in Glencoe over Christmas is a forlorn hope. I felt like Nick Clegg, discovering that I’d backed the wrong horse for a second time.

Still, having driven all the way up here for Christmas, we weren’t going to spend the week sitting indoors. Our cottage was tucked away in a cool location up a dirt track deep in forest above Glencoe village. It was in the heart of the glen; we could visit many places without having to get in the car, including both the Clachaig Inn and the Laroch Bar in Ballachulish. And several hill walks too.

On Sunday 22, our first day, the wind gods were having an orgy on the mountaintops, so we had to do something low level. We decided to check out Glencoe Visitor Centre, hidden in a forest clearing off the busy A82 main road north. To reach it on foot from Glencoe village without brushing shoulders with traffic, it was necessary to sneak to the end of a public road that became a private driveway past holiday cottages, then nip across a field with a gate. The good news is that this is perfectly legal in Scotland, where citizens enjoy a right to roam.

Once across the A82, there is a network of forest trails where visitors can wander in peace and safety. There may have been 60mph winds and heavy rain on the hills, but it was relatively sheltered down in the valley, with only intermittent light rain. The tops of Bidean nam Bian were shrouded in cloud and we could see an apron of snow creeping down from beneath.

We explored the turf house, built in traditional style, and spent an hour in the visitor museum, which tells the story of climbing and mountain rescue in Glen Coe. It felt a bit like a shrine to Glen Coe legend Hamish MacInnes, who spent most of his life here (in Glen Coe that is, not the visitor centre). For the first time since I’ve known her, Edita managed to walk around a tourist gift shop without buying any Highland cow souvenirs.

We decided to walk over to the Clachaig Inn for lunch. Previously, this would have involved risking life and limb along the main road, where traffic hurtles by at 60mph or more. They’ve now started building the Greenway track, which links the two locations by foot and bike. A sign at the exit said this thoroughfare wasn’t complete yet and it wasn’t recommended to use it. Naturally, we ignored this instruction and in fact there was only a 50m section at the bridge across the Allt na Muidhe that was missing. Apart from this gap, we were able to walk all the way to the An Torr car park on a sumptuous 2m-wide gravel trail.

Less happily, we discovered that the Clachaig Inn was closed for Christmas and wouldn’t be reopening until 27 December. This was a surprise to Edita, who was sure that she’d phoned up and booked us in for a meal that evening. We worked out from the call log on her phone that she’d actually booked the Laroch in Ballachulish by mistake. Luckily, this happened to be a shorter walk from our cottage

With empty stomachs we headed into the network of woodland trails around the small peak of An Torr. The trails were well maintained and the woodland was pleasant. The highlight of these trails is Signal Rock, a mossy crag that the chief of the MacDonalds is believed to have used to address his clan. The area around the rock was donated to the National Trust for Scotland by the Sutherland family in 1936. Until recently there must have been a good view down to Glen Coe from the top, but it’s since become obscured by trees. I assume it’s the Sutherlands who have erected a crotchety old sign at the bottom to say that no commitment was ever made to keep the trees trimmed and that any website promising a view is ill-informed.

Monday 23 (early morning) appeared to be our one and only weather window. I use the term in its loosest sense, in the same way that you might describe Nicholas Lyndhurst as the good-looking one from Only Fools and Horses. The forecast promised excellent visibility until 10am and winds as light as 5mph. I set my alarm for 6.30 and chose a walk with a good trail so that we could set out before dawn (which is 8.30 at this time of year in the Scottish Highlands).

Our plan was to climb 796m Mam na Guallain, a Corbett on the north side of Loch Leven. The route started from the village of Kinlochleven and headed up the West Highland Way for the first hour before diverting southwest to climb the lower summit of 764m Beinn na Caillich. From there it followed a 2½km ridge to the top of Mam na Guallain.

By the morning the forecast had deteriorated. Winds were up to 15mph and visibility had reverted to its default value of ‘very poor’. But by then we were up, so we just had to go for it and see what happens.

Kinlochleven is one of the more incongruously situated villages in Scotland, tucked away at the far extremity of a finger of loch, not really on the way to anywhere. It’s surprisingly large given its setting, with shops, pubs, the usual array of hotels and B&Bs, and even a climbing wall.

There was a tiny splash of daylight as we set out from the Grey Mare’s Tail car park at 8am. We enjoyed a good solid trail through woodland in the awakening light, and made good time. Soon we were above the woods and joined a forestry track looking out across Loch Leven. Beinn na Caillich rose like an island ahead of us. Its southern flank dropped abruptly to Loch Leven. The West Highland Way passed to its northern side along a wide valley dividing it from the higher peaks of the Mamores.

The predicted heavy rain was only a light drizzle, but Beinn na Callich’s eastern flank revealed a new problem. Its 764m summit was obscured by clouds, but we could see a large area of snow at a much lower altitude than the snow we’d seen on the Glen Coe peaks the previous day. Expecting the snow cover to be modest, we had (rather stupidly in hindsight) eschewed our big boots and crampons, and were wearing only light approach shoes.

We left the West Highland Way on another good trail which crossed the crashing burn of Allt Nathrach on a sturdy wooden footbridge. Another clear trail climbed the northeast side of Beinn na Caillich in zigzags. Streams of water ran down it, but the terrain underfoot was rocky rather than boggy, so my feet remained dry.

We were sheltered from the southwest wind until the trail joined the plateau-like east ridge. We reached the snow line at only 450m. It wasn’t a problem at first because the trail remained visible. As the plateau gradually rose the snow became thicker, but we could still identify the path by the absence of grass protruding through it. At 600m the terrain steepened. The snow had become several inches deep, obscuring the trail completely. Even so, I was able to identify the white ramps of its outline as it climbed in zigzags.

I finally lost the trail at 700m. Despite the soupy greyness all around, I noticed that Edita’s light-sensitive glasses had darkened. You could have fooled me, but the evidence seemed clear that there must be a sun up there somewhere whose rays were penetrating the cloud. I started to worry about snow blindness and decided to put my sunglasses on. They steamed up immediately, introducing a different form of blindness. I could no longer see where I was going.

The snow was now getting very deep. I post-holed through it for another 50m of ascent, but it was tiring and I had to let Edita lead for a while. I took over for the final section to the summit, The snow was knee-deep. I had to lift my legs in the manner of John Cleese doing his silly walk only to plonk them down a shoe length further on. My approach shoes weren’t cut out for this and I could feel my socks squelching inside.

We reached the summit of Beinn na Caillich at 11.15. We had made good time for most of the ascent, but we had slowed to a shuffle for the final section. I looked at the map and compared distances. The 2½km ridge that led to the summit of Mam na Gualainn looked doable, but it was going to take an age in snow this deep. There was no reason to think conditions would improve. The wind had picked up and my feet were getting cold.

It took only a brief discussion. Content with our little outing, we turned around and headed back down. Despite having weaved from side to side like a tortoise in a field of carrots, it was quicker to follow our footprints all the way back than break a new trail. We arrived at the Grey Mare’s Tail car park two hours later. The rain was heavier down below, so we sat in the car to eat our sandwiches.

The winds were too strong up high to make hillwalking sensible on Tuesday 24 and Wednesday 25. On the Tuesday we parked in Glen Nevis and followed the northern end of the West Highland Way up to Dun Deardail Fort. At this stage of its journey the West Highland Way is a forestry track. Much of the forest had been felled; we looked across a wasteland of stumps to the settlement of B&Bs and holiday cottages down in Glen Nevis.

Dun Deardail is an iron-age ditch and rampart that sits on a hilltop overlooking Glen Nevis. Except that today, Glen Nevis could only be vaguely seen through a fine wet mist. It took us just two hours to walk from car park to fort and back in light drizzle. The only notable incident was discovering that my Mountain Equipment trekking trousers have a two-way zip on their fly. Such zips are useful on items likes sleeping bags, where you sometimes need to leave part of the bag open for ventilation on a hot night. But who needs such a function on the zip of their fly? Suffice to say that I didn’t realise I’d zipped up both ends until I had taken off my over-trousers and felt an unexpected draught as I walked through the busy car park of Morrisons supermarket in Fort William.

On the Wednesday we wandered along the forest trails above Glencoe village. It seemed to be a popular place for a Christmas Day walk. Many tourists and locals enjoyed the sheltered trails around a small lochan. From the shores of the lake we could just see the vague outline of the Pap of Glencoe if we squinted. It was a good day for staying low.

If we were going to get up a Munro then Thursday 26 was our best opportunity: very poor visibility (naturally), but the wind and rain were going to be light. Everything was riding on the snow conditions.

I chose Meall Dearg at the east end of the Aonach Eagach ridge. From the Glen Coe side, reaching its summit involves an airy scramble however you approach it, either on descent from Am Bodach to its east or via the ‘Crazy Pinnacles’ of Aonach Eagach. But there is a sneaky route up the mountain’s backside that I found on the peerless Walkhighlands website. Starting from the road to Kinlochleven, this approach up Gleann a’ Chaolais would involve little more than a boggy path followed by a steep slog up a grassy hillside. It may not be one for the purists, but it sounded ideal for our needs.

Again we rose in the dark and had a 5-minute drive to the bottom of the trail. By the time we started walking at 8.30 it was light enough to put away our head torches. We were familiar with the start of this trail after a hike up the Corbett of 867m Garbh Bheinn on Christmas Day last year. This time, instead of heading straight up the hill, we kept right on a faint trail across a boggy hillside which kept a short distance above a river valley.

The terrain was soggy underfoot, but after Monday’s balls-up with approach shoes, we weren’t going to make the same mistake again. This time we wore our big boots, which not only kept my feet dry but had the secondary advantage of being able to take crampons should they be needed.

The temperature had been surprisingly mild for the last three days; combined with heavy rain, this meant that the snow line was likely to be much higher than it had been on Monday. Even so, looking behind and across Loch Leven, I was surprised to see that Beinn na Caillich – which had been a snowman’s paradise only three days earlier – now carried no snow whatsoever. In fact, I couldn’t see a single patch of snow anywhere. Where had it gone?

We followed the faint trail up to a boggy col. To our right we could look up Coire Cam to the jagged towers of the Aonach Eagach ridge. On the right, 940m Stob Coire Leith (which is not a Munro) rose prominently to a rounded top. By contrast 953m Meall Dearg, on the left at the opposite end of the ridge, was indistinct. The distance between them was short, and it wasn’t until we reached Meall Dearg’s summit that I realised what we’d been looking at.

Above the col, the route steepened up a grassy hillside. The ‘trail’ was generously named. We followed a line of rusty fence posts up a rough hillside for about an hour. The end came abruptly. We emerged onto the top of Meall Dearg’s northeast spur and found ourselves looking towards the narrow ridge between Am Bodach and Meall Dearg with a protruding pinnacle known as The Chancellor (which is said to resemble Rachel Reeves holding up a glass of whisky like a red box). The down-climb from Am Bodach is known to be one of the brown-trouser sections for those doing the full traverse.

Within minutes we were on the summit. I had expected to be deep in cloud, but much to our delight, the forecast had been wrong. There wasn’t a whisker of snow. I also expected to see others coming up the ‘normal’ route past The Chancellor, but we saw no one all day. We had the whole mountain to ourselves and one of the best views in Glen Coe. A monochrome Ben Nevis rose behind the Ring of Steall to the north; while the snake-like summit of Bidean nam Bian could be seen across Glen Coe to the south, Loch Achtriochtan nestling on the valley floor beneath. Meanwhile, either side of us were two contrasting ridges. To the east, beyond Am Bodach, the ridge continued in gentle waves; but you can’t stand atop Meall Dearg without your eyes being drawn to the hair-raising pathway on the other side.

Aonach Eagach looked forbidding. I felt myself touching cloth just looking at two of the jagged spikes thrusting up to the west. Edita predictably enthused about wanting to scramble along it one day, but I was absolutely delighted to have ticked off both of its Munros without having to. We had taken the easy route up Sgorr nam Fiannaidh, Aonach Eagach’s other Munro, two years ago and now here we were. There may be some people who will say that I cheated, but I couldn’t give a ptarmigan’s ptesticle about that.

Meall Dearg is a historic summit. It was the final tick for the Reverend A.E. Robertson when he became the first person to bag all the Munros in 1901. Legend has it that he kissed the cairn and then his wife in that order. I think I high-fived my wife at some point, but kissing the cairn didn’t even occur to me until I got back down and wrote this part of my report.

Packing sandwiches for a winter walk in unpredictable weather can be a bit hit and miss. On Monday we carried them all the way back down to eat them in the car. This time there wasn’t a breath of wind on the summit, so we sat on a bank to enjoy a scenic lunch before returning the same way. We were back at the car two hours later.

Our success on Meall Dearg made us more inclined to tempt fate on our final morning, Friday 27. The forecast was still dire, but 20mph winds were more acceptable, if less than optimal. I set my alarm for 6.45. When we stepped outside the door an hour later, the weather was clearly worse than the previous day. A light rain was falling, but we just had to roll down our sleeves and get on with it. We drove to Ballachulish, parked in the car park beside the visitor centre and set off walking in darkness at 8am.

Our plan was to climb the two Munros of Beinn a’ Bheithir (or Ben’s Beaver for those of you who prefer friendlier names for the Scottish hills) via Schoolhouse Ridge. The walk was a bit of a blur, as were the photos that I took en route. I carried a Panasonic Lumix waterproof camera, and boy did I need it. The reason for the light rain, we discovered later, was because we were already in the clouds when we left the car park. The depth of the clouds (we were to discover) was at least 1,024m, the altitude of Sgorr Dhearg, the higher of the two Munros. Counter-intuitively (for those of you with an understanding of gravity) the clouds also seemed to get thicker and wetter the higher we climbed.

We didn’t know this when we started out with high hopes. Our first glimpse of it (if glimpse is the right word to use in this context) was half an hour later as we left the farm track beyond the school and started climbing the hillside. There was now sufficient daylight to see that there wasn’t much to see: just a grassy hillside and mist just a few metres away.

We plodded up the trail for about an hour until the grassy hillside narrowed to a ridge. This was Schoolhouse Ridge, which contains two short sections of easy scrambling. The rock was a little greasy, but there were plenty of hand- and footholds.

It was no surprise to discover that we’d been sheltered from the wind for most of the ascent. This changed as we crossed the first summit, 947m Sgorr Bhan (which is not a Munro). It was more of a surprise to discover that we had also been sheltered from the horizontal rain that unleashed itself into our faces as soon as we emerged off Schoolhouse Ridge.

There was brief respite as we dropped to a col and followed a ridge to the top of the first Munro, 1,024m Sgorr Dhearg. We reached the top of its compact, gravelly, boring summit, with its tiny cairn containing bits of metal sticking out (the remains of an Ordnance Survey trig pillar) at 10.45. Once again, there wasn’t a sprinkle of snow. As I took my blurry summit photos that resemble Monet’s later work, I realised that my gloves were soaking wet and my hands were getting cold.

We descended to the west and the wind hit us with its full force, lashing freezing water into our faces. Suddenly the weather seemed a lot more serious. Edita raced ahead, but I had to ask her to stop so that I could change my gloves before my fingers became too cold.

Clearly we were the only people stupid enough to be up here on a day like this – or so we thought until the figure of a lone nutcase emerged from the mist. He was an older gentleman who, like us, had come north from England in the hope of bagging some winter Munros. We had a brief chat and continued on our way (later that day, he wrote in his diary: ‘met a pair of nutters coming down from Sgorr Dhearg’).

The descent stretched on. By the time we reached the col between the two Munros, my fingers had started warming up again, but we had been going non-stop for over three hours and I was feeble with exhaustion. I was in favour of continuing down to the forests of Glenachulish but Edita appeared crushingly disappointed at this suggestion.

We stopped to confer. It was eerily quiet on the col. We had descended nearly 300m into the shadow of Sgorr Dhonuill, the second Munro, and were sheltered completely from the howling wind and rain that had assaulted us as we descended from Sgorr Dhearg. It was calm enough to sit in a grassy spot beside a large boulder, eat a sandwich and have some hot tea from Edita’s flask.

We could still see no further than two tennis courts, but a quick glance at the map revealed that the second Munro was within touching distance. It was 11.30. We were at 750m, which meant 250m to the summit. Much to Edita’s surprise, I stood up with renewed energy.

‘Let’s do it,’ I said.

Edita shot ahead, but with food inside me I was in much better shape and just about able to keep up. It was only when I passed her shooting a video that I understood why she had been so desperate to keep going into the lashing wind.

‘We’re approaching the summit of my 100th Munro,’ I heard her say.

It took us 30 minutes to reach the top of 1,001m Sgorr Dhonuill. There were two short sections where the ridge flattened and icy javelins of rain assaulted us. The trail steepened across a boulder field just beneath the summit. I emerged at the top expecting to be struck by a cold blast, but the summit was a big surprise. We appeared to be ascending to a point, but the summit stood at the upper end of a gently sloping plateau and was surprisingly spacious. Had we arrived here on a better day, we would have been looking across Loch Linnhe and the Morvern peninsula to the Isle of Mull. As it was, all we could see was boggy moorland vanishing into mist. More surprisingly, there was hardly a breath of wind. Where had it gone? I have no explanation.

Even so, we were expecting it back at any moment. Had Edita brought a bottle of champagne for her 100th Munro, this was not a place to sit down and drink it. We took our summit photos and retreated, past the col where I’d eaten my invigorating sandwich and down the north flank of Ben’s Beaver. After a steep, peaty descent, we reached a flatter section following a line of fence posts. With every step the grass beneath my feet sunk into an inch of water. But at 400m, we reached the forest and the going became easy, along a pleasant trail between pines and then a forestry track that took us back to the main road.

We arrived back at the car park in Ballachulish at 3.15, pleased with ourselves for pushing through. The forecast at the beginning of the week had looked like a hillwalk terminator, but he we were with three Munros under our belts, including Edita’s 100th. Better still, the Clachaig Inn reopened that evening and we were able to celebrate with haggis, neaps and tatties.

You can see all my shit photos from the week in my Glencoe Flickr album.