Conival and Ben More Assynt

Following the inspiring nature trail with Peter and Jeremy the day before, I wanted to get into the hills while the weather was fine and see if I could indeed slow down and enjoy the journey as much as the final destination. So setting my sights northward, I drove the 80 mile journey north along the winding road to Ullapool and beyond to Inchnadamph where the route began.

For me, the best two parts of the walk were the beginning through Gleann Dubh and the walk out, which for most walkers can be the worst part. But I’ll get to that.

The glen was where I spent most of my time during the walk in. I meandered alongside the river, flanked by beautiful if sparce native trees and filled with birds, flowers and mosses of many varieties. My favourite were the primroses and the dog-violets.

A wren followed me up the glen

Ahead was a group of around 8 walkers, and normally I would have caught up with a group that large, who would naturally go slower than one person. But because I stopped and observed, and took photographs, it was a longer but much more pleasurable experience. For the life of me I tried to remember all the plants I had seen the day before and tried to identify them, but I struggled. I figured if I took the pictures, I could ask someone later or look them up.

So here they are…

This second set of photos shows how the landscape changes as I move up the glen toward the summit. They include examples of pondskaters, Black Spleenwort fern, mosses (could be Hylocomium but I’m not sure), and others that I cannot identify, even using Jeremy’s super booklet.

Two very different thoughts occurred to me as I walked toward the summits.

Why was the landscape so barren above the glen? Why was there no native woodland? My thoughts turned again to land management and wondered if it could be more biodiverse if it was managed differently.
Should we encourage the young people we take on the hills, say on S3 Projects, to carry phones and take photographs? One of the joys of walking in the Scottish hills is taking photographs, trying (and often failing) to capture the utter beauty of what you are seeing. I wonder if we did allow that freedom would it be used constructively or not. Perhaps with the right instruction, guidance and purpose, photography could be used to continue the learning back in the hostel at the end of a walk.

The walk out

When walking alone, you inevitably bump into people and have a chat. The 8 hillwalkers were a group from Bedfordshire. For many it was their first Munro. I did eventually overtake them, and ahead of them was a lady who was also walking alone. I overtook her near the top of Conival, and then she overtook me as I rested at it’s cairn. We arrived at the second summit, Ben More Assynt, effectively together. After a short rest, I suggested she could go ahead of me if she wished. But she suggested we walk down together, so after a quick introduction, off we trotted back over Conival and down to the car.

On the two hour walkout, we chatted about nature regeneration and rewilding, land ownership in Scotland (Who Own’s Scotland is on my book list to read sometime soon), kids and family, university choices and why we go to university so young, cars (we both agree that people carriers like the Ford Grand C-Max and S-Max are way better than SUVs) and many other things. Toward the end of the walk, as we were walking through the glen again and just past the sign for Traligill Caves, she shared that although she never returned to her first career after having kids, she was regularly cast as an extra in TV shows and films. She’s been on BBC’s Vigil and Amazon’s infamous Outlander. Having natural grey hair means she is frequently called up for period dramas, and told me to watch out for her in the latest Colin Firth drama based on the Lockerbie air disaster!

Needless to say, the walk back to the car park was much more enjoyable than it usually is!

7 miles north

Despite being tired after walking 19km and 1150 metres of ascent, I could not resist the 7 mile detour north to visit my favourite bridge of all time!

The journey back to Gairloch

If you have never been to Assynt or Wester Ross you really must. Don’t be put off by the midges or the distance. It is overwhelmingly stunning. On the way back, I kept stopping to take pictures, but utterly failed to capture what my eyes were seeing. Regardless here are a couple.