Knoydart Reconnaissance

by H. Stirling

Knoydart is that wild remote territory bounded on the North by Loch Hourn, on the South by Loch Nevis and on the West by the Sound of Sleat. So much water should therefore recommend a boat. It did to some.

On 4th May, 1921, Matt Botterill and “Molly” entered Loch Hourn in a double reefer, hail and rice pudding careering on the floor. The rice was saved, served and presumably eaten (Y.R.C.J. Vol V, No. 15, page 31). The next day was outstandingly fine and Botterill notes, “Laoar Bheinn as a suitable hill on which to climb”. And after the fine weather in the Loch of Hell (Loch Hourn) he and his crew received a drenching baptism in the Loch of Heaven (Loch Nevis).

Reaching further back into the wet mists, there was the S.M.C. Yachting Meet of Easter 1897, with the President and 28 members on board the steam yacht “Erne”. Loch Hourn rained and sleeted again. Apart from mountaineering activities, they also tested the resources of Macmillan’s Hotel of Skiary. These appear to have been limited to whisky at threepence a glass or three and six a bottle and none of the weakness they are putting in it today. There was also porridge.

In 1960 Carr and Stirling went by van in the month of November. Lightning whipped the two-man team out of Yorkshire and on to Edinburgh, where the party’s howff for the night was the S.M.C. Clubroom. Stirling, then S.M.C. only, not yet Y.R.C., had a key. In the cold a.m. these two furtive figures ferried bundles up the stairs from the van parked in Parliament Square. Could any burgher be misjudged for thinking Burke and Hare, the body-snatchers, had returned? Before leaving Edinburgh next day a bottle was purchased. Stirling selected “Dalmore”: the price was 59/6. Carr winced. Stirling pointed out that, since each was paying half the cost, it was an opportunity to buy a better whisky. Carr yielded; Scottish logic triumphed over Yorkshire frugality.

By Saturday night the team had reached Glen Nevis where they camped. Sunday saw their first entry into Knoydart, the land where “the King’s writ did not run and the sword was mightier than the pen”.
 
The road by Loch Arkaig to Glen Dessary lay through the lands of Locheil and “No” notices prompted the party to seek a representative of that great chief. When found he was genial; it was only the hind shooting season and there were no hinds in Glen Dessary. The day’s rain was the first for weeks; October had been a summer month this year and he vowed it would clear up for a fine week.

The day continued dull and after passing Loch Arkaig the road degenerated. It was rough in Glen Dessary; Carr and Stirling bounced as far as the Upper Glen. No more road and no camp site, so back to Glen Dessary House. The large economy sized tent fitted the flat patch of ground behind the house.

Monday, and it looked as if Locheil’s man was right. Magnificent warm sunshine, magnificent blue sky and magnificent autumn colours of gold, copper, red and yellow. A real peak reached up at the top of the glen, Sgurr na Ciche herself, the Queen of the district, a Munro to be gathered in. It is easy to see which way to go, although somehow it doesn’t look the same on the map. Never mind, it won’t be the first time the S.M.C. have disagreed with the Ordnance Survey and been correct.

The hillside is very rough and rocky, with easy angled slabs and mica blinking everywhere like heliographs. The view from the final ridge is distinctly strange. Whatever the S.M.C. might say the Survey would never leave out a loch. Of course the party have climbed the wrong hill! Stirling was furious and it was all his own work. He had not added a new Munro to his list for years and now this! Carr laughed, he was on holiday, not on an expedition. Two miles away was Sgurr na Ciche and now out of reach. The wrong hill was Sgurr na H-Aide, the Sgurr being the chopped end of a narrowish ridge giving the appearance of something more exciting, but it must be admitted it was not a bad hill.

The heads of Loch Morar on the one side and of Loch Nevis on the other, lay below; a descent to the latter was made. Here there are two cottages, Finiskaig and Sourlies. Finiskaig lacks only windows and has a fine dung floor; Sourlies is in use as a holiday cottage. A marvellously remote place with steep hillsides all around where only the deer wander. The sea loch is the one way to reach it.

Behind the cottages the remains of a path beat back and forth up the hill. It was a very well made path at one time, with stone walls buttressing the corners. Each right-turning corner overhangs a gorge made completely picturesque with waterfalls umbrellaed by golden-leaved birches.

Soon colour fades and dark walls push in; the path and the gorge run together. Darker still and boulders have jaws to seize ankles. An impressive bealach: it is the Mam na Cloich ‘Airde and the way back to Glen Dessary. Moonlight shines on water and the party relocates itself at the Lochan na Mhaim. Downwards at last into Glen Dessary, the tent and the roar of primus stoves. After the second last ritual of the day, a measure of Dalmore, the error of Stirling’s pathfinding seems much diminished.

Suddenly the two were awake to a flapping flysheet and a gale. Trousers almost decent and boots unlaced, Carr and Stirling flapped as much as the canvas to rearrange the guy ropes; there were one or two repeat performances before morning. The gale continued all day and it was impossible to leave the tent. The wind drove the rain under the flysheet and it soon got into the tent. A retreat to Lagangarbh in Glencoe was decided on, in spite of the offer of the deer larder. The long journey to Glencoe was made in darkness.

The next day looked like improving and the van was reloaded, but not before a cow had chewed half a leg off Carr’s waterproof trousers hanging over the side of the van. She appeared to have a great liking for things rubbery, she was the same animal encountered at Lagangarbh on the 1960 Easter Meet. This last hilarity marked the end of Stage I in the reconnaisance and Stage II began with steady progress north and west in steady rain. Due to the weather nothing was noted scenically on the road up Glen- Garry and past Loch Quoich although hydro schemes were obtrusive. But the descent to Kinlochourn, in spite of limited vision, was felt to be sensational; it was a very steep gradient. Visibility improved just in time for the pilot to pull the van out of its dive and the vehicle taxied out on to the flat alluvial plain extending across the narrow width of the head of the loch.
 
The flat plain is shared between a sheep farm, devoted to the white-faced Leicester breed, and Kinlochourn House, a shooting lodge whose original owner had a notion to emulate Osgood Mackenzie of Inverewe and had surrounded the house with ornamental and sub-tropical trees. He was also responsible for the white-faced Leicesters as it was considered that, due to the flatness of the county of their origin, they would not wander on the hills and interfere with his deer-stalking. The sheep, needless to say, learned the ways of the country and were soon tripping through the heather like any native black-face. The shooting gentleman had then to resort to an expensive ten-strand wire fence as much to keep the sheep in as the deer out. In further conversation with the people of the farm, the weather was also mentioned. A rain gauge is kept here and the average rainfall is 120 inches per year. In October they had had only 2 inches. Notwithstanding this exceptional low, it must be one of the wettest places in the Kingdom.

The tent was erected in a field and with darkness came another gale. The wind roared up the funnel of the fjord-like loch and the party stoically prepared for another rough night. The day dawned bright and cold but it was a long time before the direct rays of the sun enlivened this recessed corner; in mid-winter it must be worse than Kinlochleven. Almost over-hanging this small isolated community is Sgurr a Mhaoraich and last night’s storm had brought to it a shining crown of snow. Today it would be climbed. It is a Munro.

The road up out of Kinlochourn was taken and what had been missed on the way in was greatly admired. Like the path up from Loch Nevis, this too had a gorge beside it, decorated with blue-green pines and golden-leaved birches. The road was left and the steady slog uphill persevered with until the snowline was reached, to be shortly followed by the summit ridge. It was a day for views. Last night’s storm had cleared all before it and all the hills were visible. Nearest was the long range of the South Cluanie Ridge and the Saddle, forming one wall of Glen Shiel and then of course the Five Sisters of Kin-tail. Away beyond all those was the easily recognised pyramid of Spidean a’ Choire Leith, the main top of Liathach. To the west the Black Cuillin rose up with all the peaks neatly aligned and almost levelled off and then, coming in close and slightly south of west, Ladhar Bheinn. If Sgurr na Ciche was the Queen of Knoydart, here was the Monarch himself. Botterill defines the pronunciation of Ladhar Bheinn as a compromise between ‘Lurven’ and ‘Larven’. One wonders if E. E. Roberts, in the light of his notes on Gaelic pronunciation in the 1960 Journal, agreed with Botterill; certainly the people of Kinlochourn do.

There was a long lingering to absorb into the mind this fabulous panorama and to prolong the delights a subsidiary ridge was chosen for the descent into Coire Sgoir-adail where the stags were not expecting visitors. From here a stalkers’ path led into the grounds of Kinlochourn House and so to the tent.

The next day was to be the last among the hills and Ladhar Bheinn was to be the finale. From Kinlochourn this excursion provides a twelve hour day. Carr and Stirling set out at 8 a.m. expecting much of the return journey to be in darkness—it was. The weather gave hopes of yesterday’s clarity but after a short while showers could be seen coming in from the west. The cottage of Skiary, already mentioned for its whisky fame in earlier times, was passed. A mile or so beyond Skiary is Runival, an excellently sited house with its own small bay and cluster of pines. It is empty and locked but obviously entry is made through an open window. A good bothy and very attractive to the wanderer in these parts; it is hoped that it does not become a roofless ruin, like so many, through abuse.

The path was never particularly good, when it was not rough it was wet and good black bog but this merely added savour to the day’s glory. Eventually Barrisdale was reached and. a pause made for lunch. At Barrisdale the hills sit further back from the loch and the aspect is more open, also the loch at this point suddenly widens and turns sharply north-west. Barrisdale has no road to it and all practical communication is by the loch; there is a footpath over the Mam Barrisdale to Inverie on Loch Nevis.

From Barrisdale the way led up the hillside by a magnificently graded path which zig-zagged resolutely upwards. Suddenly and most startlingly one is at the entrance to Coire Dhorrcail. This is a corridor formed by the Druim a Choire Odhair on the one side and Creag Bheith on the other, sweeping out from the main ridge to form the inner sanctum of Coire Dhorrcail. To see the corrie in its entirety must be very fine but that day shredded mists continually passed, giving impressions of a high ridge and great shining wet black cliffs. Never hidden however was the delightful-looking sugar loaf of Stob a Coire Dhorrcail sticking out like a thumb from the mountain. After this sensational entrance the bed of the corrie destroyed the idyllic expectancy of green turf by being a sodden sponge of sphagnum which continued halfway up the hillside. The large bowl of the corrie with only a narrow outlet, combined with the very heavy rainfall, all have a hand in creating this.

Carr and Stirling chose to follow a branch of the burn, but this was a sickening splodge and they nipped up Stob a Coire Dhorrcail. The recommended route is to follow the main burn high into the corrie and then ascend the slopes at their lowest point on the south eastern end of the Ladhar Bheinn ridge, marked Bealach on the O.S. 1-inch map. It is the easiest and quickest way. Mist prevented sightseeing, nothing was seen of the great cliffs, and therefore no evaluation of their climbability could be made. In the mist the summit seemed long in being reached. This filled Stirling with grave doubts; he was still wary after not having climbed Sgurr na Ciche. At last the slope levelled off to a short narrow ridge and a mossy cairn loomed up—it was done.

The descent to Druim a Choire Odhair included what might be called scrambling and with Super Ektachrome in the cameras some exposures were made, half in and half out of the mists; they were reasonably successful. The path was picked up again in the corrie and followed back to Barrisdale; in a mile from there it was dark. Five miles of slopping and slithering lay ahead and the tent was reached at 8 p.m., twelve hours exactly. There was still some Dalmore left.

Saturday saw a return to Edinburgh. On the way, near the dam at Loch Quoich, a buzzard sat on a telegraph pole; a change to see this bird so close and not being a doubtful eagle. Further on, still beside the loch, the party stopped to watch a hind and her yearling by the roadside. The hind took the travellers by surprise and approached. She accepted, one by one, all of a packet of biscuits. Obviously she had been a foundling and reared by a stalker.

This early week in November had been varied from a day of warm sunshine through days of mild dampness, wet and stormy, to days of bright cold with snow. Like Scotland any time, all the seasons in a week. It was a quick look at Knoydart, a remote land of great interest which has much to reveal to those willing to wander it with pack on back. The desire to return is strong, and to go by sea stronger, for the best centre for all parts is the sea.