KYQ4: Am Faochagach and Beinn a' Chaisteil

Beinn a' Chaisteil from Meall Coire nan Laogh

Am Faochagach and Carn Gorm from the flank of Beinn Chaisteil

Sunday, 20 August 2017

Ascent: 1658 metres

Distance: 41 kilometres

Time: 9 hours 8minutes

Blackwater to Strathvaich 52mins (cycle)

Beinn Chaisteil 790m 2hrs 7mins

Strathvaich 3hrs 5mins

Strathvaich Lodge 3hrs 45mins (cycle)

Am Faochagach 930m 6hrs 33mins

Strathvach Lodge 8hrs 54mins
Blackwater 9hrs 8mins (cycle)

Two days of dryish weather were forecast in this most miserable summer so I planned a trip to climb my remaining two munros north of Inverness. I thought I could add a corbett if time permitted. I booked a night in the bunkhouse at the Aultguish Inn on the Ullapool road and left home before 7am. It was a good decision, the A9 was bereft of traffic (although a speeding ticket arrived two days later). I was walking, well cycling, by 10:30am. My early arrival also allowed me to attempt the corbett, Beinn Chaisteil. I decided, wisely as it happened, to do this first. I doubted if Am Fachagach would emerge from the cloud until the afternoon and I would have been tempted to give the corbett a miss after the 20km walk up and down Am Faochagach from Strathvaich.

I parked at the Blackwater where the private road to the Strathvaich estate begins, the pedalling was easy on the gentle tarmac incline for the first 3 miles. Before the bridge from where the road to Strathvaich Lodge continues, there is an unmetalled track that runs alongside a mature birch plantation and then curves round to the dam that holds Loch Vaich. There is a weather station above the dam as the track climbs more steeply before dropping back to the loch side.. Thereafter it is a reasonable track that runs above the loch towards the two derelict cottages at Lubachlaggan. It was a an enjoyable cycle with three gates to pass through and I stopped a few times to take in the views. The cloud level was down to about 700 metres so the mountain tops were hidden from view.

I ditched the bike just after the bridge over the burn at Lubachlaggan and found a faint path climbing steeply on the north side of the burn. After the initial climb of 150 metres the remains of the stalker's path leaves the burn and ascends via a series of zig zags to the outlying ridge of Beinn Chaisteil. There are a couple of stone cairns that I found useful in locating the top of the the path for the descent. Thereafter a plod through some heather and boggy ground before easier stony ground that leads at a gentle gradient to the summit that was hidden in cloud. An eagle appeared from the clouds and soared across Loch Vaich towards Am Faochagach, I watched until it glided back into the clouds. I had made reasonable time and had some food, unfortunately I had forgotten my water bottle and I was not tempted to drink from the burns, which were running brown after recent heavy rains.

As I began the descent there were a few breaks in the cloud and for a few minutes Am Faochagach was visible beyond Loch Vaich. It was an easy descent even on the boggy path once I found the cairn and I was down at the bike by 1pm. I cycled down to the dam and spotted a footbridge that would take me across the river to the lodge, although there was a very boggy field to push the bike across to reach the bridge. It was a curious contraption of wires and rotting timbers and it was with some trepidation that I wheeled the bike across with the timbers angled at 30° from the horizontal.

I dumped the bike behind some kennels with noisy dogs before calling at the lodge to see if I could get some water. The gamekeeper's wife seemed pleased to see a visitor and invited me in for a couple of glasses of water and then filled a 2 litre coke bottle with more of the brown tap water. She said it looks like diet coke, happily it tasted far better than the tooth acid. My rucksack was now double its weight as I began the slow plod up the unrelenting slopes of the hill behind the lodge. Initially it was through pleasant woodland but once on the open hillside it was the worst of conditions: black peat and mud or August long waterlogged grass with the added disruption of a badly churned eight track route.

This continued almost all the way to the top, Meall Coire nan Laogh (666metre), where a magnificent cairn capped with white quartzite provided a perfect place to stop and have more food. From here the walking became easier but it is a long 7 kilometres to the summit with four intermediate tops. I met a walker as she was descending from the summit, she had crossed the river from the Dirrie More, the usual route to the summit, a lot quicker but requiring walking poles at the best of times, She said it had been thigh deep and she had really thought it too dangerous. The final climb to the summit is over stony ground that has been subject to soil creep. The summit cairn is a sad accumulation of stones on a desolate flat area. The compensation being the spectacular view across to Choire Ghranda that sits between the impressive rock faces of Cona' Mheall and Beinn Dearg although the view this evening was partially obscured by low cloud.

I had been tiring during the final two or three ascents along the sinuous ridge and I was not relishing the 2 hour walk back to the Lodge, 10 kilometres away. It was not as tiring as I feared, the sun made an appearance for the first time all day and it was mainly easy walking apart from the final 4 kilometres of boggy descent from Tom Ban Mor to the Lodge. The views back to Beinn Chaisteil and over Loch Glascarnoch to the massive wind farm in the Corriemoillie Forest proved sufficient diversion. I collected the bike from the kennels and for 12 minutes cycled at a fast pace, inhaling midges until reaching the car and spending 2 minutes swatting them away as I took the front wheel off the bike and loaded the car for the short drive to the Aultguish Inn. It was time for a shower, beer and meal in the excellent bunk house. A vast improvement from my last stay here one December when we had shivered in below freezing conditions in the bunkhouse before climbing the Fannaichs in winter conditions.