Bothying in the Rough Bounds of Knoydart (Carn Mor)

Mon 31 Oct – Wed 2 Nov 2011

After meeting up with my friend Janet for a weekend at Glencoe Youth Hostel for the Clachaig Beer Festival, Alan (my Welsh friend and bothy expert) and I drove down to Strathan where we planned to do some bothying in the wild country at the start of Knoydart…

We’d originally planned to visit Kinbreak Bothy in Glen Kingie so that I could do the Munro of Sgurr Mor but, after a pretty terrible wade up a Corbett at the end of Glen Etive in a bad gale a couple of days before (so wet I’d renamed it Glen Wetive), I decided that the river crossings would be impossible. So we elected to go first to A’ Chuil Bothy in Glen Dessary and the next night planned to visit Glen Pean Bothy. We also managed to fit in a walk up a local Corbett behind A’ Chuil and were lucky to get the only really fine day of the week for it.

After a short walk round Glencoe Lochan and then hanging around Fort William for a couple of hours, we drove the fourteen miles down Loch Arkaig to Strathan at the end of the road and loch.

Glencoe Lochan

Strathan Old Schoolhouse

It was around 1530 when we set out for the hour or so walk to the bothy. The walk was on a good forest track until the final, short descent to the bothy so we made pretty good progress but I have to admit to starting to tire of carrying my heavy pack just after the half-way mark. Also, as it poured for the whole journey, I was pretty fed up of watching the rain drip off the front of my hood too!

I was pleased to get to the bothy and get my pack off. I left my very wet outer garments in the concrete-floored hallway between the two rooms to drip for a while before bringing them into our chosen room – the right-hand one. This room has a little raised and skylit alcove-room off it for the sleeping area and it looked generally brighter and more cheerful than the left-hand room. It even had a mirror hanging on the wall but I determined not to look in it in the morning! I’m sure both rooms are equally cosy. Alan soon had a good fire going and we set about making our tea and then chatted and fire-watched the evening away.

In the morning we both awoke around 0930 and looked out to check the weather. We were pleased to see that, after a night of heavy rain and gales, blue skies were starting to appear. We breakfasted, packed up our kit and decided to do Carn Mor, the Corbett behind the bothy, as being so local to it would save me a long walk in to do it on a later date. As we’d packed up all our kit that meant we didn’t have packs to carry anything up the hill with so I carried the map in my hand and we each carried a snack bar in our coat pocket. It wasn’t until we were a long way up the hill that I realised we didn’t have a compass between us – good job the visibility was good and looking to stay that way.

Heading off Uphill – Looking Back at The Rough Bounds

We’d started out up the ridge above the bothy but I decided we’d be better to traverse round the corner to the col between that ridge and the main summit as that would save quite a bit of climbing. There were no paths on the mountain and traversing the valley sides across rough and extremely wet terrain wasn’t much fun but it saved quite a bit of time and effort.

Looking Back Again…

When we finally reached the long ridge to the summit, the ground became much firmer and drier and the walking finally became pleasant – there were even small sections of a path here and there.

There was a final steep pull to the summit area which was dotted with small lochans that caught the light beautifully and made the views towards Knoydart very photogenic (although Knoydart itself was quite hazy). We were both clicking away with our cameras at this point.

Very Hazy Towards Loch Nevis!

After a short break at the summit in the sun but trying to avoid the cruelly cold wind, we headed off back down, this time electing to follow the river between the two ridges back to base. This was possibly wetter than the ascent and nearly as rough but I preferred it.

Back at the bothy we then had a quick break for a cuppa before we backpacked our gear the three and a half miles or so out to the car to reload with fuel for the bothy fire that evening. As I couldn’t drink my coffee for ages as it had been made with boiling water, Alan got fed up with waiting and set off for the car around 10 minutes before I did. The walk out was easier than the walk in the previous night as the route was mainly downhill and my pack, being now fuel-less, was also much lighter.

As I reached the split in the forest track where the other route went to Glen Pean bothy, I hid my pack behind a wooden enclosure – that saved me carrying it the next mile or so to the car and back. I just took a carrier bag for the peat blocks that I needed from the car.

As I reached the car Alan offered me some of his home-made cake and shortcake biscuit – delicious and a welcome boost before we had to then backpack the three and a half miles or so to the next bothy. I grabbed five more peat blocks and we set off to collect my pack from the path junction.

Glen Pean Bothy – Where We Were Headed Next

Although the distance to Glen Pean Bothy was around the same as the walk out from A’ Chuil, it started to really drag and seem much longer. I put that down to starting to tire as I’m not really used to carrying loads and my new load was very heavy. The route was mainly uphill (although very gradual) – Alan said the last section was steeply downhill and had a short bad section of forest. I was soon to find out just how bad!

I was curious to see, in many places along the forest track, that large areas of the mossy grass in the centre of the track had been scraped up by something. At first I couldn’t figure out what had done it but then realised we must be looking at places where the rutting stags had been having their head-to-heads. I found my assumption to be correct when I took a closer look and you could clearly see cloven hooves had been dragging through the scraped areas. No blood though luckily!

We reached the start of the steep downhill and my lower legs, which had by now started with shin splints due to my osteoporosis and lack of practice at load-carrying, nearly collapsed under the sudden pounding down the steep hill (they were still painful days later). The path then became very soft and I was sinking nearly to my boot tops in places which put me off-balance. It was by now almost dark. Presently, we came to the diversion through the thick of the forest, aka ‘the bad bit’ and a very dark place it was. This was a veritable adventure park…

In the dark… with big packs…

We had to follow a route through the trees marked out with tape tied around them. It was best to balance along on the slippery tree roots as the ground in between was unpredictable at best. And then we came to the first of the obstacles in our adventure park… a tilted, wet, wooden-slatted bridge across a burn. Alan went first…

Halfway across his legs shot away from him and he was on his back sprawling across the bridge with his head and legs dangling over the burn. He’d gone down with quite a bang and I was concerned he must have hurt himself. He said he was just bruised but could I get his pack as he was completely unable to get up. I dragged his pack off him onto the bank after wading the burn and helped him off the bridge. We then walked up and down the far bank but couldn’t see any more taped trees. We peered into the thick forest and eventually saw that the next taped tree appeared to be past an area of fallen trees.

One of the fallen trees blocked our route and I tried to get along the very edge of the river bank underneath it. Every time I tried to go forward, my back pack caught on the tree and I wedged firmly. Alan tried to help by pushing down hard on my pack so I ended up laid flat, almost in the burn, and had to crawl on my belly underneath the tree in the wet and muddy moss.

We continued to the next obstacle… this time it was my turn to have problems with a wooden bridge. Alan had already gone ahead and I decided I didn’t trust the bridge and thought I’d walk by the side of it. I placed one foot to its right on what looked like firm ground and went over my boot tops in sucking bog (I verbally called it something very similar!) Of course, this caused me to totally lose my balance while I dragged my foot out and my backpack caused me to fall backwards onto the bridge with one leg either side. The other boot then descended into the gunge on the other side. Every time I tried to drag one foot out, the other sunk deeper and I kept collapsing backwards when I tried to sit up as the backpack’s weight was completely overpowering me. With a superhuman effort, I managed to right myself and drag myself out of the bog and continue after Alan who had by now got his headtorch on.

We were both relieved to soon exit the dark forest and descend a grassy path where the bothy then came into view at last. It looked dark and forbidding and I was tuning my senses in to see if there were any ‘presences’ lurking outside it as four of Alan’s friends had reported a frightening presence seemingly lurking outside the door at night. As we reached the bothy door I decided there was nothing sinister there at all – a desolate but peaceful spot. I can imagine many people find the place uncomfortable though as the glen is narrow, deep and dark with much forest and has no habitation whatsoever – a very lonely place.

Arriving in the dark… (Alan Bellis)

I’d washed my boots and myself in the burn and collected water then went to settle in for the night. Alan already had his tea on the boil. We got a superb fire going that night which lasted until around 4am and the place was lovely and cosy. We managed to get all our clothing dry and our boots nearly so.

Fire Gazing (both photos Alan Bellis)

The next morning we were up at 0715 as we aimed to get me to Carnforth station in time for the afternoon train home. The walk out went much better than the walk in and we got through the adventure playground unscathed this time – probably helped by having full daylight. It even stayed dry for our walk out despite the weather forecast having predicted 80mph winds and heavy rain – neither of which transpired. It seemed a shame to go home!

Stats:
Day 1 – Strathan to A’ Chuil Bothy: 3.3 miles, 564 feet of ascent
Day 2 – Carn Mor (Corbett), A’ Chuil to Strathan, Strathan to Pean:
13 miles, 3241 feet of ascent
Day 3 – Glen Pean Bothy to Strathan: 3.3 miles, 347 feet of ascent

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