The Highland Controversy

Following yesterday’s long day out on Quinag, wet weather set in and motivation was lacking amongst our group.  The Inchnadamph caves were an option, as was a trip to Ullapool but with a thirst for education we went to the Knockan Crag visitor centre in the North West Highlands Geopark.

The Highland Controversy was as a result of some radical geological thinking.  There is a geological feature now known as the Moine Thrust which has a layer of rock lying on top of another, a common occurrence, but as layers are often set down as a result of sedimentation, younger rocks lie on top of older rocks.  But at the Moine Thrust the reverse is true with the upper layer being 500 million years older !  Some geologists questioned whether this was actually the case here but these doubters were eventually overcome with the ultimate outcome being the proof of plate tectonic theory.

rock layers showing the Moine Thrust

Geologists Ben Peach and John Horne worked out that the older rocks had been forced over the younger rocks, an American plate had pushed itself over a European plate.  Although controversial at the time, Peach’s and Horne’s resultant paper has come to be regarded as a classic geological text and the discovery is held by some as important as Darwin’s theory of evolution.

Peach and Horne

Knockan Crag has some trails which are easily followed with a number of sculptures and points of particular geological interest.  I would recommend a visit whatever the weather but a wet day in Scotland can be made quite a bit more interesting.

"Globe" by Joe Smith

Seven Summits of Quinag

“… one of the best mountains in one of the wildest parts of Scotland” ⁽¹⁾

“… one of the most majestic mountains in Scotland” ⁽²⁾

Quinag from the walk-in

Although all of us had visited Assynt before, none of us had been to the top of Quinag with the summit being just one of three Corbetts that lie within this massif.  In addition to these major summits the Database of British and Irish Hills (DoBIH) lists another 4 lesser summits.  A long day appeared to be ahead of us.

We followed the obvious path for a short while to a cairn which marked the turn past the lochan and up on to the eastern slopes of Spidean Coinich.  Easy-angled quartzite slabs led us up to the first summit of the day which is a minor top before reaching the summit of the first Corbett, Spidean Coinich.  We took in the view with the realisation that there was a lot of mountain still to walk.

Sail Ghorm behind Sail Gharbh

The descent off Spidean Coinich leads below an imposing buttress which has some impressive terrain for the rockclimber.  The guidebook lists quite a few routes but I’m sure that it doesn’t regularly see any climbers.

Spidean Coinich summit crag

Continuing along the ridge leads to the third summit, marked as a spot height of 714 metres on the OS Explorer map, but it is a nondescript heather-clad bump that the footpath passes over without any obvious cairn to mark the spot.  The next summit has a significant climb leading up to it and forms the crossroads that leads to each of the three Corbetts.  It is at this point, Sail Gharbh west top, that decisions can be made about the route to follow.  The easy option is to drop to the bealach between it and Sail Gharbh and head down to Lochan Bealach Cornaidh, picking up the old stalkers’ path back to the car park.  A slightly more strenuous option is to walk over the bealach and up to Sail Gharbh, which is the highpoint of Quinag.  But the big day out is to continue west towards Sail Ghorm.

Spidean Coinich

A couple of our group chose the Sail Gharbh option with the remainder of us choosing the long day out so we left summit number four and headed for Sail Ghorm.  We passed some impressive gullies to our left, making a mental note that they would probably give some good winter sport, if they were ever to come into condition.  The broad ridge led gently to the broad top of the day’s fifth summit which was also the second Corbett of the walk.  We retraced our steps and a couple of us had a little scrambling diversion to summit number six, a tabletop summit marked as a 687 metre spot height.  This left us with only the ultimate summit left to tick.

The path skirts Sail Gharbh’s west summit to a bealach before following some broken terrain up the ridge.  It was here that we saw a ptarmigan in semi-winter plumage, standing proud before flying down into the coire with its white feathers standing out against the snow-free slopes.

Ptarmigan

The true TRAIL 100 summit of Sail Gharbh, and therefore Quinag, is not the trig point but a block that lies a few yards to the north.  A few silly selfies were taken as some drops of rain fell and then we were off down to Bealach na Chornaidh and the descent to the main path before striding out towards the car park with jelly babies and sherbet lemons providing the end-of-day sugar boost.

While walking out on the stalkers’ path the ascents and descents of the surrounding summits become more obvious.  Some guidebooks suggest ascending Sail Gharbh as the first summit of the walk, but if you intend to tick all three Corbetts, I would strongly recommend following the route that we did – the ascent to Spidean Coinich looks like a brutal way to finish the day.

All of the group met up at the Altnacealgach Inn for refreshment where Guinness isn’t on draught but the device for getting the traditional head on the pint is surely witchcraft !  And the landlord is a Scouser, what more could you want ?

⁽¹⁾        quoted from     “Scotland’s Best Small Mountains”

            author              Kirsty Shirra

            publisher         Cicerone Press

⁽²⁾        quoted from     “Walking the Corbetts Volume 2: North of the Great Glen”

            author              Brian Johnson

            publisher         Cicerone Press

Stac Pollaidh

“… is a perfect mountain in miniature” ⁽¹⁾

Stac Pollaidh

After a five year absence my climbing club was returning to the SMC’s Naismith hut in Elphin, a super little hut in magnificent Assynt.  It’s a long way from Liverpool but the journey is well worth the reward as there are magnificent mountains to be climbed.

We split the journey with an overnight stop at the Alex MacIntyre hut in Onich before the final leg to the far north.  Most of those on the meet had been up Stac Pollaidh before but I found a couple of willing volunteers to accompany me.  After donning the boots we started to make our anticlockwise way on the pitched path which gradually winds around to the back of the hill, avoiding the horribly eroded direct ascent which is now actively discouraged as a way up.  The path carries on to surround the hill but at some point you have to decide on a way up to the crest.

There are tantalising glimpses of a ruggedly crenelated ridge above but it is only when you arrive that you can start to fully appreciate the landscape.  A 360 degree panorama of the Assynt peaks rising out of the surrounding moorland evokes a longing to extend your visit to climb them all; the walking in this far north-western citadel of Scotland is superb.

Quinag, Suilven, Canisp, Cul Mor

The scrambling on the ridge can be as easy or as hard as you choose to make it.  I made a long step across an exposed gap only having to reverse it when I encountered some far more exposed moves shortly after.  I’m sure that I wouldn’t have thought too much of the seriousness of the moves if I had a harness on and was attached to a rope but the lack of that security gave me pause to consider the seriousness of a slip.  So I dropped down to path that traverses under the crest to avoid unknown difficulties.

An easy scramble up the top of the old ascent gully regained the ridge an easier ground led to the crux of the route.  At this point it is reputed that many who ascend regard the moves ahead to the true summit as too hard and claim the tick as the ridge hereabouts is almost as high.  Ralph Storer says in his guidebook⁽²⁾ that “perhaps more expletives are uttered here than on any other Scottish mountain” which may be true considering that the moves to gain the true summit are graded “Difficult” in rockclimbing terms.  Claiming an ascent of Stac Pollaidh when only this point has been reached is a cop-out; the summit is the highest point and only surmounting this difficulty will lead there.

Although only a few moves long, the way up the final obstruction will feel a lot easier to someone who has rock-climbing experience.  It’s been a few years since I have done any serious climbing but I was happy that I’ve got a reasonable number of mountain routes under my belt.  A steady nerve is needed to find the best holds before arriving at the gentle stroll along to last few yards to the summit cairn.  After taking the obligatory photos of the view it was time to consider reversing the crux moves !

Cul Beag from the ridge

Now is the time not to panic – climbing down is always harder than climbing up.  But traversing in from the right (facing out) makes the most of some good ledges before getting to the hardest moves.  At this point you’ll be facing the rock and if you can find the good hidden sidepull handhold on the right your way down to the notch will be a lot easier.

At some point further along the ridge a decision has to be made about where to descend back to the main path.  There are many options and if you choose wisely you’ll back on it in a matter of minutes.  From this point you can relax and enjoy looking up towards the pinnacles of the western slopes.

Pollaidh's pinnacles

Stac Pollaidh is a TRAIL 100 mountain and is fully deserving of its inclusion in that list.  It may be just a few feet higher than 2000 feet and is little more than a half-day’s walk, but it is worth the long journey.

⁽¹⁾ & ⁽²⁾  quoted from     “100 Best Routes on Scottish Mountains”

            author              Ralph Storer

A Mountain? Really?

As a Nuttall and a TRAIL 100 mountain, Bleaklow Head had at least a couple of reasons for me to tick it.  As it is just over an hour’s drive from home and with roadside parking available at the top of the Snake Pass, leaving only about 400 feet of ascent to the summit, this was going to be an easy day.  Although I was mostly enclosed by mist, the well-paved path of the Pennine Way wound its way through the groughs of the peat moorland.

The bleak landscape offered little promise of seeing any wildlife but I disturbed a few grouse, battering their way into the air, and watched as a curlew, bigger than I imagined it would be, cruised silently past and onwards into the mist.

The mist thickened as I reached a large cairn with an embedded pole marking the summit; or does it ?  The hills database says that the summit is a “tiny cairn on peat hag” which is “0.75m higher than top of large cairn”.  In the gloom it is not easy to find the true summit amongst the many hags on the summit plateau.

Bleaklow's large cairn

The true summit

If you were to ask a child to draw a mountain, I’m sure that the result would be pointy and nothing like the flat top of Bleaklow.  From the summit you have to walk at least a kilometre in order to descend 250 feet – if you walk just north of west towards Barrow Stones, you have to walk over 4 kilometres to achieve the same descent !  Although the summit of Bleaklow Head lies at an altitude of 2077 feet, a reasonable height above the accepted threshold of 2000 feet, it’s hard for me to accept that it deserves its “mountain” status and even less that it is one of the 100 “Finest UK Mountains” according to TRAIL magazine’s list.

The next landmark of this walk was the Wain Stones which were considerably more interesting than Bleaklow’s summit.

"Give us a kiss !"

I took a bearing towards Higher Shelf Stones and soon reached the trig point and summit rocks, at least two of which lay claim to being the highpoint of the day’s second Nuttall.

Higher Shelf Stones trig point

the stones of Higher Shelf

A couple of hundred metres to the east are the remains of a USAF B-29 Superfortress that crashed in 1948.  Some of the engines and undercarriage are clear to see, within a significant debris field.  It is thought that the plane was descending through low cloud and that the crew never saw the ground before the impact.  A memorial has been erected in memory of the crew and a large cross made of stones has been shaped into a nearby peat hag; poignant reminders of those who died far from home.

Superfortress memorial

B-29 engine

B-29 undercarriage

Leaving the tangled wreckage behind, I headed east across untracked terrain to reach the Pennine Way path by the shortest route.  The cloud had cleared now and I strolled back to the summit of the Snake at a leisurely pace under the early afternoon sun.

Lagangarbh

There is a memorial bench in the Altnafeadh car park…

Despite many years as a member of my climbing club, I had never been to a Lagangarbh meet.  There have been many meets there over the years but circumstances conspired to keep me away but this year, the planets must have aligned and I found myself in the legendary SMC hut for a weekend.

Coire na Tulaich is probably one of the most notorious accident blackspots in Scotland, with a number of fatalities in recent years due to avalanche.  It is also the voie normale to the summit of Buachaille Etive Mor, that great bastion of rock that stands guard over the entrance to Glen Coe.  Recent SAIS reports had rated the avalanche risk as “High” but it had been downgraded to “Considerable” only a few days earlier, particularly for north-facing slopes of which the route up is.

Lagangarbh and Buachaille Etive Mor

I was very keen to avoid the coire and decided on a route to the right, following the broad ridge leading up to Stob Coire na Tulaich (point 902).  Although the ground at Lagangarbh wasn’t frozen despite a dusting of overnight snow, nine of us  set off up the untracked snow which was knee-deep in many places, with an occasional thigh-deep plunge catching us out by surprise.  On one short but steep pitch, I led but got caught out by the almost waist-deep snow, providing much amusement for the others as they bypassed me through shallower snow on the left !  As we moved up the snow started to harden with some hard névé needing steps kicking to reach a small plateau where we put on our crampons and goggles.  From here we moved out of the protection of the ridge and into the gusting wind as we headed towards the minor summit of Stob Coire na Tulaich.

towards Stob Coire na Tulaich

Conditions worsened as we crossed the col with 60+mph gusts of wind causing us to drop to our knees, with occasional whiteout conditions making progress even more arduous.  We got together to make a decision about what to do next in the harsh conditions and I made it clear that I was determined to get to the summit.  The others agreed to come and I stayed at the back of the group to encourage one or two of the others, for whom conditions were tiring them quicker than the main body of the group.  At the top we rested for a short while, had a bite to eat and took some traditional summit photos amongst the poor visibility.

We started back down the ridge in poor visibility and what felt like worsening winds, forcing us to our knees again.  The gusts were now taking longer to ease and keeping us on the ground, at which point I was becoming concerned that we were staying still for too long.  I was about to give the group a serious gee-up about getting down, even if it meant crawling to the col, but the winds lessened and visibility improved allowing us to progress to the col.

It became obvious that the wind was blowing snow into Coire na Tulaich over a big cornice, justifying the day’s route choice.  One of us spotted about five other walkers heading up to Stob na Doire, these being the only other people any of us saw all day.  The conditions were obviously keeping many others off the hills !

We followed our ascent route back down and enjoyed a few bumslides on the way giving some of us the chance to practice our ice axe braking !

Although the day’s conditions were challenging, I enjoyed them a lot and bad as they were, I could imagine myself still enjoying even greater windspeeds.  The day’s mileage and ascent weren’t the most I’d ever done and dropping through the freezing level resulted in a lot of wet gear but bagging a TRAIL 100 mountain and a Munro in full winter conditions was greatly satisfying.

It had rained overnight on Saturday and continued to do so sporadically as I decided whether or not to walk up Beinn a’ Chrulaiste with the group.  I had made up my mind that I didn’t want another soaking as a prelude to a long damp journey home.  But the rain stopped so I changed my mind !

Most of yesterday’s group with a couple of others saw nine of us set off across boggy ground to reach the broad west ridge, soon reaching the snowline before the minor summit of Stob Beinn a’ Chrulaiste.  Walking poles were proving very useful on when crossing the hollows to where snow had drifted.  The windspeed increased and visibility decreased as we made our way up and a correction to the bearing soon had us heading for the summit.

Although visibility was poor, we managed to get some good views of the snow-plastered Buachaille Etive Mor.  Beinn a’ Chrulaiste isn’t the most exciting mountain but the view across the valley is unsurpassed.

Buachaille Etive Mor

We could just make out the trig point from a foresummit and soon the summit photos of my first Corbett were taken after goggles were quickly donned in the cutting wind.  A quick decision was made to reverse the route rather than traverse the mountain which gave us a more leisurely opportunity to enjoy the view over to Buachaille Etive Mor and Coire na Tulaich.

Crowberry Tower on the upper left skyline 

Walking back to Lagangarbh via the Altnafeadh car park, I passed a bench with a memorial plaque to Allan Lang, Richard Lang and Paul Bower.  On 21^st February 1995 they were caught in an avalanche in Coire na Tulaich.  Such were the continued high avalanche risk at the time rescue teams abandoned the search – their bodies were recovered 6 weeks later.  The bench looks towards the coire and serves as a poignant reminder for us all to understand the power of the mountains and how lucky we are to be able to enjoy our days amongst them.

2014 Targets

Lists to tick

Entering 2014, I am doing a lot of work behind the scenes to work out walking routes to tick the remaining summits of the lists I have chosen to pursue in my now post-Wainwright days.

I have decided to aim for completion of the English and Welsh 2000-foot mountains, these being the Nuttalls.  However, there are a couple of historic lists of 2000-footers, particularly the Bridge list and Buxton & Lewis list.  As you would expect, there are a lot of common summits across all three lists, but there are a few summits on the two older lists that are not Nuttalls.  I have chosen Bridge and Buxton & Lewis as opposed to other similar lists for two reasons; these classifications are included in the DoBIH spreadsheet and many of the 2000-foot completions on the LDWA website are for these lists.

Another long-term goal is completion of the TRAIL100 summits.  Most of my remaining TRAIL100s are in Scotland but those left in England and Wales are also Nuttalls and so should be simple to tick.

The WASHIS is a Welsh-specific list of 600-metre mountains.  Most of these are also Nuttalls and the extra 5 that aren’t can be ticked with a little extra effort.

In the long term

If my sums are correct, I have 324 summits to tick to complete all of the above lists.  The summits range from the very far north of Scotland to Dartmoor and I have set myself a goal of 10 years to finish them.  It’s not very ambitious but it does allow a large contingency for whatever life events arrive in the coming years.

Of 444 Nuttalls I have 245 left to tick; of the 100 TRAIL summits, I have 54 unticked.

This year

In simple numbers, 10% of my remaining summits based on my 10-year plan seems reasonable.

Which means I’m aiming for 33 summits, amongst which should be 25 Nuttalls and 6 TRAIL100s.

Looking at a map of my unticked summits, I’d like to mop up the more isolated groups of English mountains this year.  These are :

• the Cheviots                  (6 summits)
• the Peak District           (3 summits)
• the Malverns                 (1 summit)
• Dartmoor                      (3 summits) 

In addition, one English summit that I’d like to climb is Pillar Rock.  Strictly speaking, it is beyond the reach of ordinary hillwalkers but my previous rock-climbing experience gives me the confidence that this otherwise tricky summit shouldn’t pose me too many problems.

Keep an eye on my forthcoming blog entries and I’ll let you know how I’m doing.

A 2013 Summary

The major achievement of the year was the completion of 4 hill lists.  This sounds more impressive than it actually is because 3 of them started and finished on the same summits.

Those lists were :

• The Wainwrights

214 summits listed in Wainwright’s 7 Pictorial Guides to the Lakeland Fells

• The Fellrangers

227 summits listed in Mark Richards’ 8 Fellranger guidebooks

• The FRCC244

244 summits listed in “The Lakeland Fells” published by the Fell & Rock Climbing Club

• The Outlying Fells

116 summits featured (but not all named) in Wainwright’s guide to the Outlying Fells of Lakeland

Overall I :

            went on             18                                walks

            walked              111.9                            miles

            ascended          36,050                          feet

            walked for         76 hrs 46 mins              (including rest stops !)

            reached            45                                 individual summits that I hadn’t been to before

            reached            12                                 individual summits that I had been to before

            drove                2479                             miles on trips to and from walks

I don’t think that I did a lot in 2013 but the completion of the Wainwrights after 30 years makes up for a relatively quiet year.

Happy New Year and be safe on the hills in 2014!