Petestack Blog

I was with Noel when I did it, except that I wasn’t with Noel. He’d dropped me off to start along the shorter, northern leg of the Kernsary Circular Path because I’d be continuing east after A’ Mhaighdean while he’d be cycling down the slightly longer, but infinitely more bike-friendly, southern leg because he’d be coming back out west. But here I was, heading into the remotest hill terrain in Scotland on Sunday night, in trainers but carrying boots, axe etc. as ‘insurance’ against conditions on the high tops, not yet two miles off the road on a section of path so straightforward I could have been walking down the street, when my right foot suddenly, inexplicably folded inwards with an ominous grating sound…

So what to do next? I knew it was bad from the foot angle I saw, sound I heard, rapidity of swelling and pain that had me briefly howling. But my phone was in my rucksack, who knows where Noel’s was or where he was, perhaps we both had a signal and perhaps there was none. Without the Fisherfield round there’d be no Slioch on 30 May and I wasn’t coming back for it next weekend or the one after if I was hurt, but the pain was rapidly easing, I thought ligament damage more likely than broken bones (so who heads into Fisherfield with either?), and perhaps I could walk to Carnmore and discuss the prospects there? So I did…

Except that some four or five miles later things started to get pretty sore after all and by the time I’d crossed the causeway on the approach to Carnmore I was in quite some distress. But Noel appeared (coming back to look for me) to give me a shoulder along the track to the barn and, after an episode where I had to first sit and then lie on the path to avoid passing out, we were there… 10.3 miles from the nearest road and about four hours after my accident.

So that was that. I’d wilfully pushed on more than eight miles into the ‘Great Wilderness’ with an obvious injury. The Fisherfield through-trip was over, my scheduled, sociable Slioch completion was over (because I couldn’t get Fisherfield first) and there was a high probability that Noel would be heading back out in the morning trying to arrange a chopper to fly me out. Damn, damn, damn!

But then the Monday morning ‘miracle’ as I awoke to an ankle that, while still horribly discoloured and swollen, could be weighted almost normally, had regained a substantial range of movement from its ‘wooden foot’ self a few hours before and, above all, didn’t hurt. So I tried a little walking around, thought it was worth a ‘look’ now we were here and suggested to Noel that we head for Ruadh Stac Mor and A’ Mhaighdean (the peaks he’d come for) prepared to turn back if I was wrong. Except that I’d better carry my full pack anyway because A’ Mhaighdean’s near enough halfway to Corrie Hallie (sort of 15 miles to the road either way!) and I might as well finish the job if I’d got that far. And, since he could see I was both ‘OK’ and not joking, he bought it, and off we went up the superb stalker’s path east.

First batch of photos courtesy of Noel Williams (sorry I didn’t get any of you because I hadn’t got my camera out!):

So normally I’d be banging on about the breathtaking wild country, with the forecast morning showers clearing quickly enough to give us a good whiff of the fabulous prospect west from A’ Mhaighdean (widely held to be the finest summit view in the country), and dedicating a lengthy blog post to how the wilderness via its western approach is absolutely everything it’s cracked up to be. It really is that good! But there’s a twist to this tale yet and, since I need to get on, another short sentence (what, short sentence? from me?) or two about that particular journey will have to do. In which case what happened next (after parting from Noel on the summit of A’ Mhaighdean) can be summarised as finished the fabulous Fisherfield round, particularly enjoyed the fine little rock peak of Sgurr Dubh at the end of the annoying dogleg to pick up the two subsidiary Tops of Mullach Coire Mhic Fhearchair (this is not a short sentence, is it?), and was finally reunited with Noel at Corrie Hallie in near dark some 14 hours and 21.6 miles after leaving Carnmore. Which might not impress in ‘mph’ terms, but wasn’t exactly hanging about on rough, rough ground with an overnight pack on my back. And not meeting a single soul (bar Noel) all day!

Second batch of photos by me:

So… Fisherfield done, Slioch ‘saved’… what next? I had work in the morning and we were going to be hideously late home, but that ankle still really needed checking just in case. So whether to stay with Noel in Torlundy, phone work and head straight to casualty in the morning or get home, go to work and phone for a doctor’s appointment from there? Well, since I was walking fine and felt duty-bound to do the latter, I headed straight home. But then made the mistake of photographing my ankle and posting the pic on Facebook. After which, just as I was planning to head out in the morning having already let the normal ‘let us know’ time go, a strong consensus seemed to be rapidly emerging to ‘get that checked out… now!’ So a change of heart and sheepish phone call later and I was driving back up the road to the Belford. Three hours and much examining, prodding and X-raying later and I’m waiting with a ‘backslab’ (non-weight-bearing partial plaster cast) on my ankle for my boss to rescue me and another to drive my van home. But the people at the Belford know the score (as will my own doctor when I see him on Friday) and I agreed to this backslab thing because it’s temporary and they assured me it was giving me the best chance of getting to Slioch after all. For sure the doctor there suggested most people wouldn’t expect to be up a Munro four weeks after their ligament pulled off a chip of bone, but I told him I’d already done five Munros and a Corbett on it and am not ‘most people’. I’m letting the West Highland Way Race go because it’s the one thing I’m prepared to let go to make everything else right, but still more than hopeful of walking up Slioch on 30 May (remembered this morning I’ve got poles I rarely use!) and running at least part of Marie Meldrum’s Celtman support on 27 June if I’m ‘allowed’. And my doctor will understand that. He knows what makes people like me tick and might not even be that surprised to hear that I just walked 30 miles through the Fisherfield Wilderness with a technically fractured ankle. On which note the bottom line is that I’ve done 598 of my 601 ‘all-time’ Munro tops, the three remaining (one Munro, one Top and one Deletion) are all on Slioch, and I’m both OK and going to be OK!

While a full weekend in Kirriemuir with Saturday ascent of Mayar and Driesh might have been nice had I been free to go sooner, it might equally have been too wet and windy even that far east to enjoy and would certainly have resulted in missing the excitement of the river engorged beyond anything I’ve seen in 25 years of Kinlochleven life, as photographed on my way out at c.2:00pm…

But, despite the prevailing wet’n’windiness everywhere west, road east blocked at Loch Iubhair by full-width flood deep enough to produce ‘bow waves’ from the single-file traffic and River Dochart through the bridge at Killin looking perhaps even wilder than the Leven back home, escape to the east was duly accomplished in time to be admiring Campbell and Jillian’s new roof before dinner.

So Mayar and Driesh with Campbell had been on the agenda for some time but, delayed by the wait for coincidence of mutually convenient time, weather and a roofed house with room to put me up, now become my final Munros bar Fisherfield and Slioch. And, modest summits as they are, proving a delightful walk (which should also make a great wee hill run) by Campbell’s recommended ascent route of Corrie Fee, where you pop out of the forest to a flat floor to give Coire Gabhail a run for its money in the ‘surprisingly striking’ stakes and the classic icefall of Look C Gully (now thawed to an unclimbable dribble between Campbell and the more obvious B Gully towards the left of first photo below) seeming good reason to return at some appropriate time… which surely won’t be this year despite the ‘four seasons in one day’ sampler giving us everything (rain, sun, hail, sun, snow, sun) bar the colder cold and mid-level freeze/thaw cycles necessary to refreeze and fatten it up!

Suddenly, after a largely lousy December for coincident good hill conditions and free time, forecasts were pointing to three or four consecutive grab-me-while-you-can days and I was off to start cleaning up the North-West…

First stop Fionn Bheinn en route to Ullapool on Saturday, followed by my final Fannichs on Sunday, a return to the ‘Deargs’ on Monday for the deleted Top (!) missed in 2008 and a soggy Moruisg and Sgurr nan Ceannaichean on my way home on Tuesday. Which adds up to a whacking great chunk of what I need by May when, apart from two Munros, one Top and one Deletion elsewhere, what remains uncoloured on today’s map is all that’s left of my 601 all-time-listed ‘3,000ft’ tops.

Not a huge amount to say about Fionn Bheinn here. It’s a modest wee singleton, perhaps famed more as a splendid viewpoint than for itself. Conditions were crisp, cold and windy, but I was really more concerned about the condition of the roads (and getting back up from my icy parking spot by Achnasheen Station) than the hill. And the cloud came and went, alternately obscuring and revealing both summit and more distant views, with only my ultimate target of Slioch truly playing hard to get and ducking the camera as a more consistently fleeting presence.

So on to Ullapool, where (really not fancying several days’ sub-zero camping or dossing in the van) I’d treated myself to the rare luxury of proper paid accommodation and booked at the Argyll Hotel. Which might have been extravagant, but made all the difference to a pleasant trip with a comfortable room and excellent food… on which note, money’s only of value for what it can do for you and, yes, I’d do it again!

Having noted the bottom of the Gairloch road as still quite snowy in passing on Saturday, I was a little concerned about getting up past Braemore Junction to the start of the Loch A’ Bhraoin path but, while not surprisingly finding it still much the same on a cold, cold Sunday morning, needn’t have worried. And there were perhaps six or seven vehicles already parked up there, with just one truly viable space left for me. I chose to tackle my round of two Munros and a Top anticlockwise to deal with the most pathless ground first, landing on top of A’ Chailleach in a whiteout soupy enough to make locating the surprisingly indistinct start of the ridge to Toman Coinich quite awkward as (with compass in one hand and GPS in the other) I’d find myself ploughing through localised drifts on the flat shoulder that disconcertingly screamed ‘cornice’ but weren’t! But things were starting to clear by the next bealach, the couple I met heading up what I’d just come down probably had an easier time of it, and I enjoyed a nice walk down (interesting discussion about photography and winter tyres!) in and out of the cloud from Sgurr Breac with Mike Dunlop from Keith, who I met on the summit.

Now, the missed deleted Top of Ceann Garbh ‘old position’ had been bugging me ever since a memorable weekend in 2008 when I’d traversed the whole of An Teallach on the Friday afternoon/evening, the four ‘Deargs’ (missing the Deletion after failing to mark it on my map) and Seana Bhraigh on the Saturday and Beinn Alligin on the Sunday. But no Dearg day is wasted, a winter round of Meall nan Ceapraichean (with both versions of Ceann Garbh) and Beinn Dearg looked attractive, and I had the hills to myself after meeting a pair of climbers returning down Gleann na Squaib following their ascent of Penguin Gully and overnight camp. It was another crisp, cold morning, with the bicycle I’d brought with the glen in mind left in the van as I took the icy track on foot, but spectacular with it as turning round to catch sight of a snowy An Teallach brought an audible ‘wow!’ After which the clouds slowly started to roll in, with still-good views from Ceann Garbh and Meall nan Ceapraichean turning to the whitest of whiteouts on Dearg, where the massive summit cairn was still coming and going at about 10 metres distance. So another blind descent to pick up the famous wall (which was close to buried at points) and the summit never cleared again that day, but numerous chilly attempts to time a photograph with the Moon over Dearg unobscured by a sea of moving cloud were finally rewarded with the opportunistic bonus of ‘Plane over Moon over Dearg’… or perhaps symbolically just ‘over the moon’ with a possible eagle sighting too before finally dropping back to the glen to hit the main road in near dark at 5:00pm!

So I said something about the forecasts pointing to three or four consecutive good hill days, and that turned out to be three in the end with a big Monday-night thaw clearing the roads (good!) and largely stripping the hills of snow (more debatable?), but a still very useful, if soggy, Moruisg and Sgurr nan Ceannaichean picked up on the way home. Not that I saw either of them, although they were slowly clearing by mid-afternoon when I left, but I did find both cairns on both double-cairned peaks (where the higher in each case seems to be the smaller and less significant-looking one), which was more than the party of four who’d not unnaturally just assumed the larger of the two on Moruisg was the summit. So perhaps just a final warning to baggers… while neither the Moruisg nor Ceannaichean cairns quite match the famous false summit of Beinn Dorain in the ‘imposter’ league, you could still miss their barely-higher true tops in poor visibility if you didn’t know!