Lochs Morar, Nevis and Hourn
By A. B. Goggs
Between Mallaig to the south and Kyle to the north lies a large area of Scotland which is virtually unapproachable by motor car, and perhaps for that reason is destitute of accommodation for a traveller. A study of this area on the one inch O.S. map is a delight; for mile after striding mile the contours dance with never a break for a great, flat-footed, yellow band of motor road to blunder across them. To explore this area the best method is unquestionably by sea. This has two great advantages, for in the first place the problem of carrying sufficient camping equipment and stores to be independent of local supplies for relatively long periods solves itself, and in the second place the mountains are seen from the best level, namely sea level. Other advantages will occur to those who have come to hate the sight, smell, and noise of their own and everyone else’s motor car.
Femina and I decided that this would be a very proper way of spending a holiday and took the first step by purchasing a collapsible canvas canoe. We then referred casually to our yacht in conversation. Apart from being nearly upset into Semerwater while trying to sail we had no preliminary experience with this boat, but except for one weakness mentioned later we found it very suitable for our purpose. Eighteen feet long and with a beam of thirty-two inches, it had sufficient luggage space, and when we had become accustomed to the flexing which occurs in a short choppy sea, it did not even frighten us. Above all it was fast and easy to paddle and handle. Our friends reacted splendidly to the whole idea; one said it would be too hard work, another that he would be ashamed to take such a lazy holiday—one that the bottom would be ripped out on rocks and anyway it was absurd, another, who had recently been reading his Poe, that we should be carried out to sea and sunk by a maelstrom, and anyway it was absurd. As a final makeweight Femina found an aunt who had been upset from a boat in the Hebrides by a school of porpoises. The magnificent exploit of two Germans, who crossed from Flushing to Thames mouth in a full gale with a similar boat, a week before we started, gave us something to work to.
We arrived at Morar, pronounced Maw-ra, on a Saturday afternoon in June and spent the evening in finding a place at the end of the loch where the boat could be assembled and packed, out of sight of the kirk. We were successful and twenty or thirty people must have passed us next morning without seeing us. At eleven-thirty we pushed off from the shore and simultaneously the congregation came out of kirk. About a mile down the loch we started to remember the things we had left behind and on my walk back to fetch them I passed most of the congregation yet again, feeling and no doubt looking not a little foolish. The first two days, in which we went down to Kinlochmorar at the eastern end of the loch, were largely experimental. The freeboard of the canoe when fully loaded was only about six or eight inches ; the waves looked very large, and there was a concealed feeling at the back of our minds that perhaps our friends were right, which is never a very pleasant feeling. This soon passed however and by the end of the trip we recognised the stability and security of the boat.
At Kinlochmorar we were confined to our tents for two days by bad weather but two low altitude expeditions were made to the bealachs (passes) between Morar and Glens Dessary and Pean. The S.M.C. guide book speaks very highly of the first which is a very narrow, deep glen, bare of trees, but when we climbed it very early in the morning it seemed a bleak, rather cheerless place. The other is a great, broad glen, green with trees and grass and open to the sky. It mounts by a series of steps to the bealach while down one side of it a stream runs through a conglomeration of rocks, each as big as a house, where birches and oaks grow. It seemed the most beautiful place in the world at the time. Here we met some wild goats which took fright and fled at speed up the most exposed edge of a slab not quite so steep as Botterill’s.
A portage was made over the 1,300 yards that separate Loch Morar from Loch Nevis which is a sea loch. Three journeys were necessary and it was very hot. The canoe was relaunched and taken safely through the ” swillies ” between Kylesmorar and Kylesknoydart into Upper Loch Nevis.
This passage is made interesting by a half-tide rock which controls the centre, but fortunately we did not know that as we passed over it on a full tide. Kylesmorar boasts of two houses of which one is the post office and the other the home of a most able man who is now building his own fishing boat, with wood cut and seasoned by himself. That finished he proposes to start on a hydroplane !
The weather was again not too good in Loch Nevis and it was not possible to climb the big peak of Sgurr na Ciche which dominates the head of the loch. The shapely peak of Sgurr na h’Aide, pronounced as far as we could tell Ah-je, was climbed along the west ridge and gave magnificent views down Lochs Morar and Nevis, to Sleat, the Cuillins, and the islands. We found very many deer in the upper corries of this mountain.
Some difficulty was experienced in leaving the loch, for a high wind the day before had left a big sea behind it. We put the nose of the canoe tentatively round the headland into the open sea and promptly ran for shelter. Two camps were pitched here ; one at a deserted farm, Earnsaig, deserted that is by all but sheep which nimbly climb the staircase to the upper rooms, the other behind Eilean Guibhais. Because of this high sea and because both the back-rests of the canoe, which brace the whole boat together, had broken, the original intention of going up the coast to Loch Hourn was regretfully abandoned and it was decided to pick up the car again at Mallaig and drive round.
The open sea passage to Mallaig was started at five o’clock in the morning since the tide notoriously waits for no man. On this voyage of six miles or so, we felt the real swell of the sea for the first time and we saw some splendid breakers below Mallaig lighthouse as we passed into the harbour. This bit of coast is steep and has few possible landing places in an emergency.
The journey to Loch Hourn was uneventful but darkened by a hotel, where we spent the night to get a rest from tinned food, giving us soup out of a packet, prawns out of a tin for fish, baked beans out of a tin for vegetable, and peaches out of a tin for sweet. At Kinlochhourn where the road ends the canoe was re-assembled and launched. A semi-permanent camp was established between the farms of Skiary and Runival. Here we were joined by D.L.R. and his wife. Ten days of extremely hot weather followed during which not too many mountains were climbed ; in fact only the Saddle, An Caisteal and Stob a Choire Odhair.
The first of these, which is the magnificent peak on the left going down Glen Shiel to Dornie and Skye, gives an amusing scramble on its ridge and one very easy pitch of about 30 feet. The Stob was climbed by one member of the party, which started very late, rowed four miles down the loch, and climbed and climbed in great heat serioiisly intending to reach the summit of Ladhar Bheinn. At about 2,800 feet a mutiny occurred and the Skipper was sent on to climb the inferior peak and ” save face ” while the mate and crew lumbered down hill to bathe ; the porters, to change the metaphor, did not behave magnificently. The north-east corrie of Ladhar Bheinn is hemmed in on two sides by fine cliffs, one belonging to the main peak and one to the subsidiary ridge, Dhorrcail. One’s first impression is that they should be seamed by climbs, although the S.M.C. guide only mentions one, and this impression persists on closer examination. The mountain has the advantage of great inaccessibility, defying, with the nine miles that lie between it and the nearest road, the most earnest mountaineer. To explore it properly a base camp would have to be brought by sea from Arnisdale, about three miles across the loch.
A few notes may be added for anyone who may wish to visit this area in a similar manner. Three inflated motor tyres were thrust into the extreme ends of the boat in addition to the buoyancy bags provided by the makers. These will float the fully loaded boat without passengers even if waterlogged. Two lightweight tents, mattresses, sleeping bags and personal luggage were carried in six bags, or bolsters, each about three feet long and nine inches in diameter. Four of these were tied along the sides and two were put under the front canvas with rope and climbing boots.
Food was carried in plaited straw baskets which have the advantage of adjusting their shape to any space and of being without corners or edges. Two post offices only can be used as food depots and these are at Kylesmorar and Arnisdale ; the post office at Inverie marked on the O.S. map no longer exists. Milk and eggs can be readily obtained, butter sometimes, and bread not at all. At Arnisdale there is a small shop where some tinned provisions may be got and tobacco of a sort. The people everywhere are most charming and kind, and for a quiet climbing holiday for the self-sufficient this method of travel and this area can be highly recommended.