Chno Dearg: A big walk with very big rewards

Distance: 8 miles/13km

Time: 6-7 hours

While many would suggest winter is Scotland’s best hillwalking season, my preference would be either spring or autumn. The promise of spring tends to be in your heart, uplifted by the thought of the summer ahead, but the beauty of autumn is more immediate, and on a good day lies all around you in golden splendour.

Stob Coire Sgriodain, 976m/3202ft, and Chno Dearg, 1047m/3435ft, the two Fersit hills beyond Loch Treig, certainly makes a marvellous late winter circuit, especially as a ski touring outing, with the big, open corrie between them usually offering great downhill running until well into the spring.

The circuit of the two hills makes a fairly easy day out, although many Munro-baggers are happy to lengthen it by adding nearby Beinn na Lap.

While it’s great to get the extra Munro, it does add a big descent from the subsidiary top of Meall Garbh. That’s followed by a long climb of nearly 500m to the summit of Beinn na Lap before turning round and repeating it all over again. Alternatively, you could drop down to Corrour Station from Beinn na Lap and return to Tulloch by train.

I first visited Fersit many years ago with Hamish Brown. We had planned a day on the tops but dreadful weather forced us into low-level sloth.

We thought that afternoon tea with the late Nancy Smith at Fersit would round off a pleasant, if wet and windy, day, but Nancy wasn’t in, although a note pinned to the door invited visitors to come in and make themselves at home. Fersit, in those days, was one of Scotland’s early private hostels, a role model for those to come.

Today the bunkhouse at nearby Tulloch is altogether grander, but equally welcoming.

The road-end at Fersit is the logical starting point for the round of Stob Coire Sgriodain. Once past the last of the houses the track gives way to rough pastures which in turn run into the lower slopes of Coire an Lochain.

Several burns tumble downhill from the corrie and you can follow any of them because they all eventually form one stream, the Allt Chaorach Beag that begins its life high below the crags of Sron na Garbh-bheinne in Lochan Coire an Lochain.

The first time I climbed these Munros everything was covered in snow and the steep, craggy face of Sron na Garbh-bheinne looked fairly intimidating. Instead, I opted to bypass the crags and tackle what I thought would be the easier eastern slopes of the ridge. I eventually found a wide, snow-filled gully and even today I can nervously recall the trepidation I experienced as the slope got steeper and steeper.

When I eventually reached the relative safety of the ridge the exhilaration I felt was made even sweeter by relief but the sustaining and most rewarding emotion was even greater – a sense of privilege at being part of that magnificent scene.

Beyond Sron na Garbh-bheinne the ridge led me to the summit of Stob Coire Sgriodain where the views beyond the head of Loch Treig were simply breathtaking. There lay the great, rolling mattress of the Rannoch Moor, a vast and desolate place protected on all its sides by uprearing mountains.

On that day it was as though perfection had been defined in mountain splendour. I wandered round the rest of the route on a cloud of high fulfilment.

The ridge dropped down to a high bealach and then straggled in a south-east direction to Sgriodain’s south top.

A series of bumps and knolls rolled on south-east, over a double top and down to another wide bealach where, in summer, there is a scattering of shallow lochans. This all sounds rather confusing but on a clear day the route is quite obvious. In mist it can be tricky.

From Meall Garbh it’s an easy climb to the dome-like summit of Chno Dearg where the open slopes of Coire an Lochain herald the long descent to Fersit and home. Sadly there’s no Nancy Smith now to greet you with a brew and a welcoming smile.

Cameron McNeish

ROUTE PLANNER

Map: OS 1:50,000 Landranger sheet 41 (Ben Nevis): Harveys Superwalker (Ben Nevis).

Distance: About 8 miles/13km.

Approx Time: 6-7 hours.

Start/Finish: Fersit (GR: NN350783).

Route: Take the track east from Fersit then follow rough pastures via various sheep fanks to the south. Climb open slopes then craggy ridge to Sron na Garbh-bheinne. Follow ridge to Stob Coire Sgriodain. Descend south to bealach and then SE to S top of Sgriodain. Cross more open ground in an ESE direction over a double top and down to another bealach. Climb Meall Garbh. Follow ridge NE to Chno Dearg. Descend easy slopes NNW to track back to Fersit.

Due to a backlog caused by Covid restrictions, we are running our favourite previously published walks.