Corbetting in Knoydart

Looking down the west ridge of Sgurr a Choire Beith towards Barrisdale Bay

View from the top of Ben Aden looking east towards Loch Quoich and Sgurr Mor

Corbetting in Knoydart

We had planned for some time now to make a return to Knoydart. The S.O. had munros to do and I knew that there was a lot of scope for Corbett bagging. After discussions with a couple of friends we piled into our friend G’s Saab estate at the end of July and headed up to Kinlochhourn.

The forecast was for a generally bright day with showers. This sounded good for the walk in to Barrisdale. Indeed G and I planned to walk over a Corbett, Sgurr Nan Eugalt on the way in.

However, the typical, Knoydart weather had other plans. By the time we got to the end of the narrow, winding road at Kinlochhourn, it was grey and chucking it down. We sat in the car hoping it would ease off and as luck had it the rain stopped for us to get ready.

Soon after we set off and trudged along the coastal path. The path is scenic and in better weather, very attractive. Today, though, it was a trudge and took us all over four hours to complete. Never mind, the bothy was relatively quiet when we got there so we managed to get a room to ourselves to kip in, although H decided to camp to save money.

The bothy was slightly different from my previous trip in that there were now bunks in the rooms and there was no stove to keep warm at. It could be that my memory of 10 years ago are a bit fuzzy though!

After a quiet night and a reasonable sleep we woke to cloudy skies and drizzle. Not a good sign! The SO and I managed to struggle out of bed for breakfast and talked about what we fancied doing. I had my mind set on Sgurr a Coire Beithe, which was relatively near to the bothy. I think the SO fancied Luinne Bheinn, although I knew she would have problems convincing G to get up and go. Other people at the bothy had big plans; Luinne Bheinn and Meall Buidhe; Ladhar Bheinn; and one intrepid walker from Stirling even planned all three!

I left quickly leaving the others to decide what to do. Soon I was tramping up Glen Undalainn towards the Mam Undalain. Although the guidebook route was up the West ridge I wanted to make it a bit easier by sticking to a path for the first part of the day. The climb up to 500m was quite straightforward.

The weather was miserable. I soon had goretex jacket and waterproof trousers on which remained the whole day. At the Mam I wasn’t sure which way to go because of the cloud cover so I headed up in the right direction by compass, weaving around the outcroppings of rock which seemed to guard the hill. Not long after, I reached a 800m top which was due west of the summit. I then took a bearing and headed for the top which was soon reached, but of course there was no view.

One annoying thing I found during the climb was that the photochromic lenses in my glasses had darkened up even though there was no sun! This made the day seem even gloomier than it was in reality. Obviously, there must have still been a fair amount of UV light getting through the cloud cover to affect the lenses.

At the top, I took a bearing to descend the West ridge and promptly went the wrong way! I had put the compass away and thought I knew which way to go. 5 minutes later I looked at my compass and couldn’t figure out where I was. After thinking about it for a few minutes I decided to return to the top and try again. Thankfully this was easily achieved. This time I kept the compass out and followed the bearing. Despite my dipping confidence this turned out to be the right direction and I was soon passing over the 800m top I had intially passed over.

After some damp descent, I found myself coming under the cloud cover and could see the bothy in the distance. Shortly, after I was on the main track and heading back.

On my return, I found that the others had decided against an ascent of hills and had walked around the bay and also walked towards the Mam Barrisdale.

The next day dawned somewhat brighter and after breakfast our group split into two parties. The SO, H and G went to do Ladhar Bheinn and I set off to do Ben Aden, the Corbett at the head of Loch Nevis. This was a long day for me, and I hoped the weather would be better.

Biggest headache of the day is that you have to cross the Mam Undalainn in both directions adding over 700m ascent to the day’s total.



Halfway up the glen, a shower reared its ugly head and proceed to try and soak me. This didn’t help my mood for the day.

I got to the Mam and found that Ben Aden was clear and showing itself off well. There appeared to be a couple of lines on the western slopes where it looked possible to find a way through the crags. I didn’t fancy going all the way round to the east side of the mountain, so when I had descended a fair bit, I went to cross the river at the foot of the mountain and did a splash dash across it.

After wringing out my socks I sat and ate lunch contemplating my route. At this point I realised I had committed to the climb and wasn’t going to back out now. Up to then, the weather and boggy path had made me doubt whether I could be bothered going up at all. The day before I was totally scunnered with the weather we were getting.

Anyway, here I was at foot of a 700m climb rising steeply in front of me. Nothing for it but to go up! I started up and soon found the going difficult. The ground was damp, tussocky and treacherous. After a while I got to the top of a grassy ramp and found that there were broken crags all around me. Remembering back to my first sight of the hill I contoured to the right and found a line through the crags. I continued this way and was lucky enough to find a safe line all the way to just below the top.

I made the top at 1.45pm, just an hour and a half after starting the ascent. Now for the hardest bit, going down! I had been lucky to avoid the cloud so far and I didn’t want to get caught on the way down, thus making my descent doubly difficult.

I took bearing for the corrie at the back of the hill as this looked the safest way down. Although, there was a bit of scrambling and a bit of backward and forward, the route down was generally OK, particularly when you picked up the main river down. Fortunately, although the cloud was beginning to envelope the hill, I managed to beat it in the speed of my own descent.

Finally, at the back of 3, I made it to the main Loch Quoich path. I was about to give myself a rest stop but had promised that I would cross the river coming out of Lochan na Breac first.

Initially, this seemed to be too wide and deep to cross. However, a short walk downstream found a good wading point. With boots and socks off, I easily managed across. In fact, the water was quite soothing on my feet. This gave me another chance to wring out the socks.

Now for the hardest part of the day, the trudge back to the Mam Undalain! Although this was hard work, it never got too bad and for the most part I was able to keep going and make good time. Although it was still wet it didn’t seem quite so bad coming from the other direction.

Once at the Mam, I had a drink and a final look at the view. At this point, most peaks were clear, so it was quite a wide panorama I had. Looking at my altimeter, I noted that I’d managed to complete nearly 1700m of climbing that day. Biggest day for a while I thought.

After returning to the bothy I found that the SO had had to turn back on Ladhar Bheinn because of problems with her feet and that G and H had not come off the hill yet. In fact they didn’t get off the hill until 9,00pm, an epic day of 12 hours! I think if I was in their company I would have gone crazy at the slow pace. Still at least they were safe.

Of course, on the next day we had to walk out. Fortunately, everyone managed to get up on time and we left for 9.00am. The dry weather meant we made good time and managed to get to the end of the road for 1.00pm.