Misgivings on Moruisg

Mar 2010
I always thought, whenever I drove down Strathcarron, that Moruisg (the mouse) was the simpler of the Munros down the glen and therefore decided to tackle it first. Little was I to know how wrong my day would go and how Moruisg was to make me very nervous about tackling all the other Strathcarron Munros – a nervousness which was quite unfounded as they are all fine really.

I decided to spend the night at the bunkhouse of my favourite Scottish Hotel – the Ledgowan. The proprietor handed me the key to my room and, on entering to make up my bed, I noticed the top bunk was already made up (there is one set of bunks in each room and 5 or 6 rooms). I made up my bed and unpacked and then headed straight off to the bar for my tea and an evening by the fire chatting to my mate the Brummy barman 🙂

I was quite late leaving the bar and the other occupant of the room had already gone to bed so I let myself in quietly and went to bed. I awoke in the morning to movement above – the upper bunk occupant was getting up. A pair of feet appeared on the top rung of the ladder… followed by a pair of… hairy legs!! 😮 I was sharing a room with a male stranger! Luckily I’m no prude and also quite confident about looking after myself so wasn’t bothered – but I could imagine how many lone women might react. As all the other rooms were unoccupied, I was amazed I’d been put in the same room. Mind you, it’s only the same as bothying really…

A nice German man turned out to be the owner of the hairy legs and, luckily, neither of us was at all abashed. We both got up and went into the kitchen for our breakfast where we had a great chat and discussed our plans for the day. I probably tried to persuade him he wanted to do Moruisg but unfortunately he didn’t and had other plans.

We set out for our separate walks and I drove off down the glen to the parking for the hill. I had a good look at Moruisg as I exited the car in deteriorating weather and thought it looked forbiddingly steep…

I also had a study of Sgurr nan Ceannaichean next door to Moruisg as, although that had recently been deleted from Munro status, it was now a Corbett and looked quite nice – I’d include that too, I decided. I studied the north ridge of Ceannaichean for a descent as the map said a path came back from the corrie you would end up in. However, there was a small area of steep cragginess partway down the ridge and I started to waver about whether I would be happy descending the ridge or not. I decided I’d see when I got there…

Sgurr nan Ceannaichean

The track sets off across very wet ground towards the exceedingly steep hillside. On the way you have to cross the river (luckily via a bridge) and also the railway. I marched quickly across to the foot of the hill and started off up the boggy convex slopes just to the left of an area of gullies.

The ground was wet and featureless and the path had by now given up. The ascent turned into a boring slog and, about half way up, suddenly went exceedingly steep as expected. I started to wonder whether I’d be happy coming back down as, at that time, I had a horror of ‘steep’ (I still don’t like it to be honest but cope better nowadays). There were also areas of hard snow about and I think I just had microspikes with me and no ice axe…

As I neared the summit ridge, the mountain disappeared into thick cloud, as it often does for me, and a bitterly cold wind sprung up. I knew I just had to reach the highest part of the ridge and then turn right until I hit a cairn so continued.

It was far too cold to stop for any kind of break at the summit so I just continued on down the long southern ridgeline for Sgurr nan Ceannaichean. It was quite some way…

Despite the mist, it was quite a nice walk around the rim between the two corries and eventually I was heading up the easy north-east ridge to Ceanneachain. The mist cleared as I traversed the route to the summit and I had a peer down my north ridge. I still wasn’t sure about the steep section and, in typical cowardly manner, was wondering whether I should just escape down the easy back via Coire an Tuill Bhan to the Craig track and have a long walk back up the road to the car. I could always hitch a lift…

I stopped briefly on the summit and had a good look around – more for escape routes than for the view. In the end, I decided I didn’t fancy the much longer route via Craig and went back to look at the north ridge again. Unfortunately, I still wasn’t sure and ended up chickening out.

After wavering for quite some time, I decided to go back to Moruisg and, if I couldn’t see a less steep portion of western flank to redescend, I’d just follow the northern ridge until I was happy to descend the western side. I knew that I’d have no chance of crossing the river and the excessively boggy land back to the road but decided to deal with that when I got there.

Heading back on the long plod to Moruisg

By now the weather began to deteriorate again and, not having had a break yet, I was getting a bit low on energy and feeling cold and tired. I soldiered on back into the mist until I reached the cairn on Moruisg once again. From there I continued on along the fairly well defined north ridge.

Suddenly, out of the mist loomed a split in the ridge which I hadn’t noticed on my earlier perusal of the map. I whipped the map back out and could see I needed the left-hand fork. The map said the western flank didn’t really get any less steep anywhere along its length – it started to look like I’d have to descend the whole north ridge, taking me a long way out of my way…

I decided to have a peer down the side of the ridge into the mist – to start with, the slope didn’t look too bad so I tentatively set off down. After quite a descent, a long band of hard-frozen and very steep snow hove into view – there were no gaps in the band and I really didn’t fancy tackling it at all! I wavered for a minute but decided I had to go back up to the ridge.

With a sigh I plodded back up once again and continued on down the north ridge until I finally exited the mist. Now I could see there was no more snow below me but there was a woodland instead – the Coille Mhoruisge. I hit the mid-point of the woodland fence – it was one of the 9 foot high deer fences so I needed to find a stile or, alternatively, follow the fenceline to one end or the other of the woodland and descend from there. Trust me to pick the wrong direction…

No stile appeared and I’d gone right (towards the lower part of the ridge) instead of left. I later saw that, if I’d gone to the left-hand edge of the wood (west), there was a bit of a path raking down across the mountainside.

I reached the end of the wood and looked at my descent ground – it looked horrible. It looked much steeper than the map suggested, was very rough and full of gorges and gullies and I had quite some time of it battling my way down. I eventually reached the railway with a sigh.

All the way down I’d looked at the river and could see it would be far too deep to cross to reach the road. The ground leading up to it was horribly wet too. It was about two and a half miles back to the car parking and the easiest way was along the railway really but it’s single track and I had no timetable so would be a dangerous choice. Under Moruisg, the ground on the south side of the railway was either woodland or horribly wet, rough ground and, on the thin strip of land on the north side of the railway, I’d have to negotiate field boundaries all the way.

I was pretty exhausted by now and I ended up choosing an inadvisable route back to my outward path (but am not prepared to admit here what it was)… At one point, I slipped down a banking and twisted my knee badly. I limped on until I finally reached my outward path and, with a sigh of relief, followed the boggy path back to the car.

I think I really would have been better descending the back of the hills to the Craig track and thumbing it back up the road after all. And anyway, the north ridge from Ceannaichean would actually have been fine and is regularly used.

Sgurr nan Ceannaichean from the Craig Track