TGOC 2014 - Day 1: Glenelg to Glen Arnisdale

Friday 9th May 2014

An excellent walk up Beinn Sgritheall to start my TGO Challenge walk for 2014 

Distance: 23.5km; Ascent: 1340m; Mostly dry with occasional showers and cloud above 800m; Solo

See tracked route in new window

After yesterday's long journey it was nice to wake up this morning on the west coast :-)  I chatted to Bob Tucker over breakfast in our B&B, which also happened to be the sign-out point for Glenelg (and hence why I decided to stay there).  It was raining heavily at breakfast-time, but the forecast was for the weather to improve during the day.  Therefore I saw little point it rushing off and instead opted to have a leisurely first half of the morning before repacking my bag and signing out at 10am.

Ready to set off at Glenelg

I wandered down to the sea near to the village war memorial, where some passing Corbett bagging walkers kindly took a photo of me on the west coast.  I nipped down onto the beach to dip my boots in the sea before heading SSW along the coast road with intermittent rain showers.

Glenelg war memorial

Boots in the sea at the west coast

Soon I reached the road junction at the foot of Gleann Beag where I had to make a decision on which route to take: my planned high level route or my foul weather option up the glen.  The weather seemed to have improved significantly since breakfast so I opted to head up into the hills :-)

Decision time: high or low level route?

There were a couple more showers as I continued SSW along the coast road, which climbed up to a height of around 200m over the next few kilometres.  There were excellent views out over the Sound of Sleat towards Skye on the other side, as well as further afield towards Eigg.  I was offered at least two lifts along this section of road, which I naturally declined!

Looking SW along the Sound of Sleat

Looking down the Sound of Sleat towards Eigg

Around a kilometre beyond Upper Sandaig I stopped for lunch with excellent views out over the sound.  A friendly pickup driver stopped for a chat before I set off walking eastwards along a good forest track.  After a kilometre or two it began to deteriorate to a grassy, muddy track, which led to open country at Loch na Lochain.

Loch na Lochain

I picked a way through the damp ground near the loch to reach a very pleasant looking green grassy area by the Allt Gorm; if it wasn't so early in the afternoon I might have been tempted to camp here!  I ascended up to reach a small lochain at the foot of the west ridge of Beinn Sgritheall, from where there were excellent views over to the peaks of the Knoydart peninsula.

Loch na Lochain from the SE

The peaks of Knoydart over Lochan Bhealach Rarsaidh

Soon I reached the Munro baggers' path and began to ascend up Beinn Sgrithreall's west ridge.  By now it was quite a warm afternoon so I opted for shorts in an attempt to stay cool whilst lugging my heavy back up the hill!  I took frequent rests to admire the absolutely stunning views out over Loch Hourn and the Sound of Sleat towards Knoydart, Eigg and Skye :-)

Eigg, Loch Hourn, Sleat and Beinn Mhialairigh

Looking west to Beinn Mhialairigh and Skye from the west ridge of Beinn Sgritheall

Looking across Loch Hourn to Ladhar Bheinn from the west ridge of Beinn Sgritheall

The cloud base seemed to be varying at around 800m to 1000m, which meant that I was occasionally able to pick out the summit of Ladhar Beinn across the loch, which had been the first hill I climbed on my previous TGO Challenge back in 2010.  Unfortunately the cloud stubbornly refused to lift off Beinn Sgritheall, so at around 750m I ascended into the cloud and the stunning views are replaced with the familiar view of the inside of a cloud!  Nevertheless I continued my ascent and reached the summit of Beinn Sgritheall (Munro, Marilyn) at around quarter to four.  I took a break here near the toppled remains of a trigpoint near the summit cairn.

Broken trigpoint on the summit of Beinn Sgritheall

On the summit of Beinn Sgritheall

Once I felt suitably refreshed I continued on through the mist to visit the cairn on the summit of the East Top (Corbett Top).  From here I descended steeply down towards the Bealach Arnisdale.  I had been toying with the idea of staying high and continuing on over the two Corbetts of Beinn na h-Eaglaise and Beinn nan Caorach, but it transpired that the cloud base had dropped significantly in the last hour, which meant that it could be tricky to pick a safe way up the steep slopes of Beinn na h-Eaglaise past the crags; instead I decided to stick with my original plan and descend down to Arnisdale.

Summit cairn of the East Top of Beinn Sgritheall

The descent SSW from Bealach Arnisdale was very steep; at around 500m I dropped back out of the cloud, to find I once more had excellent views down to Loch Hourn.  I soon picked up a Munro baggers' path, which I followed steeply down near the Allt a'Mhuilinn past a waterfall.

The steep descent SW from Bealach Arnisdale

The Allt a'Mhuilinn

Lower down the angle eased and I was able to enjoy the views across to Knoydart, which were still stunning even though the cloud now covered the summits.  I continued to descend down towards Loch Hourn to reach the road at the western end of Arnisdale village.  It was now early evening on my first day of the TGO Challenge and I was once again back on the west coast, hence I concluded it was probably time to leave the sea behind and start heading east!

Arnisdale and Loch Hourn

Loch Hourn at Arnisdale

After kilometre or so of road walking I picked up the track up Glen Arnisdale and began to look for somewhere to camp for the night.  After a brief detour to take a look at the building named on the map as Achadh a'Ghlinne, where I had been considering camping, I continued another kilometre up the glen in the lovely evening sunlight to find a spot to pitch my tent near the River Arnisdale.

Achadh a'Ghlinne

Evening Light in Glen Arnisdale

I pitched at around half-past eight after a ten and a half hour day of walking, much of it dry with excellent views :-)  It was nice to be backpacking again and I enjoyed dinner followed by a wee dram of Jura before getting some well earned rest!

Camp in Glen Arnisdale

TGOC 2014 - The final five days

On Sunday afternoon I left Braemar to walk to the east coast at Montrose, where I arrived yesterday morning. My route took me via Gelder Shiel, Conachcraig, the Water of Mark, Mount Keen, Tarfside, Edzell and North Water Bridge; here are a few photos of these days when the sun mainly shone and it hardly rained :-)

posted from Bloggeroid

TGOC 2014 - The Middle Section

Yesterday I arrived in Braemar, having spent five days walking here from Fort Augustus, via Chalybeate Spring, Newtonmore, Glen Feshie and Glen Dee, including a mixture of low level and Munro bagging days. This afternoon I head to Gelder Shiel.

posted from Bloggeroid

TGOC 2014 - The first four days

I reached Fort Augustus late yesterday afternoon after four excellent days of walking since setting off from Glenelg on Friday morning. Here's a brief update on what I've been up to on route with a few photos - more details, photos and route maps will appear in due course once I'm back home.

On Friday I ascended Beinn Sgritheall as planned, with excellent views from the west ridge before I ascended into the cloud at around 800m. I descended to Arnisdale before camping a couple of kilometres up Glen Arnisdale.



Then on Saturday I spent the morning walking in rain to Kinloch Hourn, where I spent a pleasant hour resting in the tea room. By now the rain had cleared up and it was warm and sunny, so I decided to ascend Sgurr a'Mhaoraich with excellent views over Loch Quoich. That evening I camped near the road bridge over the northern arm of Loch Quoich.



On Sunday I had a long, good day climbing the two Munros of Gleouraich and Spidean Mialach. Again there were excellent views when I wasn't in the cloud, and there was a surprising amount of snow still remaining in their northern coires. After three long days in the hills, I descended to a B&B in Inchlaggan for a welcome rest!



Then yesterday I walked along the forest tracks to Invergarry, where I met Alan, Andrew and Phil in the pub and walked with them much of the rest of the day into the metropolis of Fort Augustus. Today I head into the Monadhliath.



See this post of mine from last week for details of my planned route together with updates on my actual progress via Social Hiking.

posted from Bloggeroid

Glenelg

After a long day of travelling, I'm now in Glenelg ready to start the TGO Challenge tomorrow morning. I'm hoping the views tomorrow are as good as those this evening in Glenelg.

posted from Bloggeroid

Live Mapping for the TGO Challenge

Wednesday 7th May 2014

Tomorrow I will be heading north by a combination of trains, buses and a kind offer of a lift to reach Glenelg, from where I will be starting this year's TGO Challenge from. My plan is to walk from there to Montrose over 14 days, taking in a few hills on route. All being well you should be able to follow my progress using the map below (purple is my planned route and green is my actual progress). Please note however that the live progress information relies on my SPOT Connect and my phone working correctly during the trip!

See map on Social Hiking site or full size in a new window.

An Easter Backpack in the Galloway Hills: Day 3 - The Southern Rhinns of Kells & Lamachan Hill

Sunday 20th April 2014

A slightly less sunny day to end an excellent backpack in the Galloway Hills 

Distance: 27km; Ascent: 1310m; Sunshine at first with a cold wind; Solo

See tracked route in new window

I woke up at around 1:30am to the sound of the tent being blown about - it appeared that the wind had not only strengthened overnight, but also changed direction so that the tent was now no longer optimally orientated with respect to the wind direction.  After concluding that the wind wasn't currently strong enough to cause a major problem I went back to sleep until around 6:30am this morning.

Early morning light at camp on the Rhinns of Kells

After a breakfast of porridge, I packed the tent up and set off walking shortly before 8:30am.  It was nice to have camped so high last night as I reached the summit cairn of Millfire (Donald Top) in almost no time at all.  Again there were excellent views this morning, with barely a cloud in the sky :-)  There was however a noticeably stronger cold wind than on the two previous days.

Corserine from the south

Summit of Millfire

Continuing south along the pleasant Rhinns of Kells ridge, I reached my second summit of the day: Milldown (Donald, Graham Top).  A short descent to the SSE brought me to my original planned camp for last night at the Lochans of Auchniebut, although I was glad I hadn't ended up camping here as it looked like it might have been tricky to find a dry spot of ground!  Another 100m ascent lay ahead before I reached a trigpoint; a few hundred metres further on lay the summit cairn of Meikle Millyea (Donald, Graham Top, HuMP).

Summit of Milldown

The Lochans of Auchniebut and Milldown

Trigpoint on Meikle Millyea

Meikle Millyea summit cairn

There were excellent views SW from here towards my next range of hills, which included the hills of Millfore and Lamachan Hill.  In addition I could make out the Arran Hills and the Lake District hills in the far distance!  My original plan had been to continue along the ridge over Little Milyea and Darrou, but I realised that it looked relatively easy to gain the forest road to the SW of Meikle Millyea.  Therefore I decided to descend through felled forest towards the Green Burn and follow this down to the forest road, which should allow me quicker progress and allow me to catch up with my original plans.

Millfore, Lamachan Hill & Loch Dee

Green Burn

It was hot out of the wind in the forest as I followed the track for two to three kilometres to reach a bridge over the Black Water of Dee.  Around here I joined the main east-west forest road through the forest park, which meant I encountered a few vehicles and probably around a dozen cyclists.

Black Water of Dee

Forest Road in Glen Dee

The section of the forest road was also the route of the Southern Upland Way, a temping sounding long distance route across the Southern Uplands from coast to coast.  Soon I had a lovely view over Loch Dee towards Craiglee, so I decided to stop for lunch around here.

Southern Upland Way marker near Loch Dee

After lunch I left the main forest road and headed southwards through the area of forest marked on the map as Black Laggan Ward.  There had clearly been a lot of felling here in the last year or so as there were loads and loads of logs piles up in huge piles along the edges of the path.

Some of the many log piles in Black Laggan Ward

The felled forest north of Millfore

At the southern end of the track I had planned to follow the firebreaks up to reach the open hillside around 500m away.  However owing to the felling of part of this forest, the first section of the firebreak didn't really exist, which resulted in the unpleasant negotiation of a couple of hundred metres of felled forest.  Beyond here I picked up the firebreaks, but following these wasn't without difficulty as there were many fallen trees blocking the way.  However after much fighting my way through the trees I finally reached the open hillside!  By now I had almost run out of water so I re-stocked from a handy nearby stream before ascending up to the trigpoint and cairn on the summit of Millfore (Graham, Donald).

Cairn and trigpoint on summit of Millfore

Whilst I sat having a break here, it was clear that that I was enjoying the last sunshine of my trip as it was rapidly clouding over this afternoon.  The walk from Millfore to the bealach below Curleywee seemed to go on forever as it was very knobbly!  However I did pass the nice looking White Lochan of Drigmorn and the visited the summit of Gairy of Pulnee (Donald Dewey).

White Lochan of Drigmorn

Summit of Gairy of Pulney

Curleywee (Donald, Graham Top, HuMP) was my next objective and from here it looked very steep, and I can confirm that it was a very steep ascent!  However after much exertion I finally reached it's summit cairn perched on a rocky outcrop.

Rocky summit of Curleywee

The descent from Curleywee was quite steep with various craggy bits to circumvent, plus quite a bit of scree in places.  I continued west along the ridge over the minor top of the Scars of Milldown (Donald Dewey) until I only had one hill left to climb.

Curleywee from the west

I pushed on to the rounded summit of Lamachan Hill (Graham, Donald), where I took a short break near the summit cairn.  To descend from here I descended steeply into the coire at the head of the Sheil Burn, which I roughly followed down over unpleasant tussocky grass to eventually reach the forest track below.

Lamachan Hill summit cairn

My pace quickened now that I was on the homeward straight; the good track certainly helped with this!  I crossed the Gairland Burn and continued on to ascend back up to the Bruce's Stone carpark, which I reached shortly before 8pm after a long day's walking.

Gairland Burn

It had been an excellent three days of backpacking in what appears to be seldom visited hill country, and it didn't rain at all!  I decided to get some of the way home this evening so that I could join the rest of my family at Tatton Park the following day for some Easter fun :-)