Location: Mullardoch’s Creag Dubh, Inverness-shire
Grade: Moderate mountain walk
Distance: 8 miles/13km
Time: 6-7 hours
IT hadn’t been the most promising of starts. We had left home later than planned and arrived in Glen Cannich looking for a short-day option.
The Corbett of Sgorr na Diollaid, straddling the watershed between Glen Cannich and Glen Strathfarrar, looked like a good bet since my wife hadn’t climbed it but a stalking party appeared to be heading in the same direction. I had a chat with the stalker and he confirmed they’d be shooting on the flanks of the hill above Muchrachd.
He seemed genuinely sorry but I was happy to back off and go elsewhere – it’s not as if Glen Cannich is short of good walks!
At the head of the glen, Loch Mullardoch stretches out west with some fine Munros rising from its north shore.
Carn nan Gobhar, Sgurr na Lapaich, An Riabhachan and An Socach form a 15km corrie-bitten and wind-scoured ridge that requires a long walk-in along the northern shore of the loch. The ascent of Carn nan Gobhar, high above the source of the Allt Mullardoch, makes a fine circular route of about 14-15km from the Mullardoch dam.
I walked this route in the spring when the sun shone on the lower slopes and snow still lay on the tops and I recalled views of Glen Strathfarrar in the north and beyond to the big hills of the Monar Forest.
I also remembered the close-up views of Sgurr na Lapaich, the most majestic of all the Mullardoch Munros. Robbed of our desired destination for the day we set off for a repeat ascent of Carn nan Gobhar instead.
As we set off it became apparent we might not get things our own way. It was blowing a gale and the waters of Loch Mullardoch were being whipped up into fiendish squalls.
As we left the lochside and followed the course of the in-spate Allt Mullardoch we were mercifully sheltered from the wind but I knew that once we reached the ridge that runs west to Carn nan Gobhar that wind would hit us head-on. A boggy footpath runs up the Allt Mullardoch into Coire an t-Sith, the fairy corrie, so we made the most of it, enjoying the tumultuous swirl and roar of peat-brown waters of the burn before climbing the steeper slopes of Carn nan Gobhar’s eastern top, Creag Dubh(946m/3105ft).
It had been a pleasant enough climb, despite the boggy underfoot conditions and the showers of monsoon-type rain. Clad from head to foot in Gore-Tex we were well protected from most of the elements, but even the best of waterproofs wouldn’t stop us being battered and rocked by the wind. On the high ridge the wind was so ferocious it forced us into another unplanned route change.
Instead of fighting into the gales we’d go in the opposite direction and allow the wind to blow us along – to the stony summit of Creag Dubh, down easy slopes to a high bealach, then over a couple of un-named subsidiary tops before descending Coire Eoghainn back to the Mullardoch dam.
It was a good plan. The wind didn’t bother us too much now that it was blowing at our backs and we wandered over some un-named tops that are rarely visited, if at all, by the baggers.
Once we left the main Carn nan Gobhar ridge there was no sign of man-made paths or tracks, only us and the wind and the occasional roaring of the red deer stags. Below Creag Dubh we took shelter behind a rather curious 60-metre long dry stone wall and tried to figure out what its purpose was.
Could it be the remnant of some older dividing wall, separating parishes or communities, or could it have been created by trainee drystane-dykers on a high-level training course?
We had no idea, but were grateful for the shelter it gave us to enjoy our coffee and piece. Two more cairned summits took us east towards our earlier destination, Sgorr na Diollaid and I couldn’t help wondering how the shooters had fared. Like us, they had probably been battered by the wind and rain. The elements might even have spared the life of some red deer stag.
Easy slopes took us down the russet-coloured Coire Eoghainn then, just as I thought we were almost there, steep slopes of old heather and invisible streams gave a purgatorial final half-hour. It was a bedraggled pair who reached the road but by this time, with the exercise-induced endorphins flowing, we declared it a memorable walk, if only for the uncertainty of it all.
Cameron McNeish
ROUTE PLANNER
Map: OS 1:50,000 Landranger sheet 25 (Glen Carron & Glen Affric)
Distance: About 8 miles/13km
Time: 5-6 hours
Start/Finish: Mullardoch Dam (GR: NH223310)
Route: From the dam at the end of Loch Mullardoch follow the road on the N side for a short distance to a boat hut. Just beyond the hut the road ends and a rough footpath continues along the N shore of the loch. Follow this path for 1.5km to the bridge over the Allt Mullardoch (NN206318). Follow the E bank of the stream up into Coire an t-Sith. At the end of the path continue N up steeper slopes to the summit of Creag Dubh. Descend SE to a high bealach with a curious wall then continue ESE to a large cairn at spot height 861. Foloow the broad ridge E for a short distance before descending the slopes of Coire Eoghainn back to the start
We are running our favourite previously published walks due to a backlog caused by Covid
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