The last time I was in Glen Affric was August 2023, when my son and I climbed Tom a’ Chòinich & Toll Creagach. At around 17km, it was a superb introduction to the easterly hills of Glen Affric. However, the walk was quite far north, so we didn’t really see into the glen itself!
This was remedied on Wednesday 12th June 2024. It was a much longer walk, 31km in total, with just over a mile of vertical ascent. I was just shy of 10 hours on the hill.
The route
I had a few hopes for this walk:
- To get a view of the Mullardoch Munros, which I walked a few weeks prior
- To see more of the glen, probably from the walk out along the SE ridge of Mam Sodhail
- To see the Affric hills further west, usually approached from Glen Affric youth hostel, that I hope to complete this summer with my son on a wee overnight exped.
Càrn Eige
Leaving the car park near Chisholm Bridge at around 7:40am, the start of the walk followed the same track that I walked last summer approaching Tom a’ Chòinich and indeed, as I enjoyed the rejuvenating pine forest in the cool morning air, that was all I could see in the distance.
My progress slowed as I approached the entrance and exit to the Tom a’ Chòinich & Toll Creagach path, for underfoot became very boggy, and really didn’t let up until I reached the peak of Sròn Garbh (the beginning of the ridge – 1131m high) at 10:30am. At this point my right foot was fairly saturated (I’ve been putting off a boot repair for a while now) but it was a good point to look back at how far I’d come and the path ahead to the goal!
Not long later I could see the second summit in view to the north (along with a fairly poor view of the Mullardoch hills). I finally reached the summit of Càrn Eige at around 11:20am.
As you can see, for mid June, there was a surprisingly large amount of snow at the top. And unusually, I exchanged a munro top selfie for a rear facing camera shot, thanks to a fellow bagger!
Beinn Fhionnlaidh
From there, after a quick bite, I headed northwest on a 4km detour to climb the very remote munro Beinn Fhionnlaidh that I was hoping would provide good views of Mullardoch. As yet there were no views of the westerly Affric hills, thanks to the cloud cover.
I quickly caught up with the pair who’d taken my picture on the summit, and we got talking about Mullardoch. I felt I recognised them and very quickly we realised that we had been on Augus’ ferry on the very same morning three weeks ago! See this post for an account of that glorious day! After a time chatting with them about my sabbatical, they asked my opinion of the reintroduction of wolves. One of the pair was for their reintroduction, and the other against! I tried to be as balanced as possible in my response, especially given the conversations I had with Fin at Aigas (see this post) and the video she recommended I watch.
The stalker of Inverinate Estate
Very shortly afterward, as we walked along together, a stalker approached us, complete with gun, a large bag (with unknown contents) and two fox terriers. I quickly remarked before we approached that I suspected he would have a very different view on wolves. After informing us that he was hunting for foxes, but with little success, my companion mentioned that we had just been discussing rewilding and how the way land was managed affected biodiversity. He was defensive of his approach, stating that neighbouring estates run by the National Trust did nothing – just let things go wild and took no care in managing the fox population. He also argued that trees wouldn’t grow in this land anyway, as it was too infertile. As he was returning from Beinn Fhionnlaidh in the opposite direction that we were heading, we politely said our goodbyes and walked onward.
As I climbed toward the second summit, I wondered about the foxes – what harm were they doing, was their population actually too high? I also wondered what his evidence was for trees not being able to grow on this estate. I remembered passing a tree growing out of the rock at around the 700-800m mark earlier in the day. I also had to mind Peter Cunningham, who told me about the difficulty that trees had growing because of the lack of potassium content in the montane ground.
Thankfully, as I approached the summit, the clouds had lifted and I was able to gain wonderful views of Mullardoch and back toward Càrn Eige.
Mam Sodhail and the stalker’s drone
From the cairn on Beinn Fhionnlaidh, I said farewell to my companions, and retraced my steps south, and bypassing Càrn Eige, I moved toward the final summit of the day, rather pleased that I was still feeling quite energetic despite having walked 15km already.
Only briefly stopping at the bealach between Càrn Eige and Mam Sodhail to take another picture, I reached the summit alone at around 2:15pm.
Well, I thought I was on my own.
As I approached I was convinced I heard a drone, and at the summit realised that it was being controlled by the stalker. That explains the mysterious bag he was carrying!
We had a good chat about drones – my son is really keen to replace his beginner ‘toy drone’ with something more substantial – and the stalker highly recommended his DJI Mini 2. But I also asked him more about the land. He and two other stalkers manage the 78,000 acre estate for owner Sheikh Mohammed bin Rashid Al Maktoum, the ruler of Dubai. He told me that, contrary to the owner who rarely visits the estate, he spends most of his time on these hills. It puts into perspective the phrase commonly used by teachers during S3 Projects, ‘I can’t believe I’m getting paid to walk in the highlands for two weeks‘! He also tells me of a fascinating little hut just down from the summit that most walkers don’t venture to see.
My two regrets of the day are not venturing southwest to have a look at this Colby Camp, and also not climbing the large cairn at the summit of Mam Sodhail – it is hollow and you can only get inside by climbing the cairn. Find out more about Colby camps in general here and the one specific to Mam Sodhail here from the NOSAS annual reports!
Who owns Scotland?
As I ventured SE along the ridge traversing off the hill, I considered all the stalker had told me. It felt very wrong, at least to me, that the wealthy foreign owner of a large amount of Scottish land was not present to manage it. A number of articles can be found about him online; here and here are just a couple that appear near the top of a google search for him, and this article from the ‘peninsularqatar’ makes for interesting reading about land owners in Scotland. I’ll let you draw your own conclusions.
As I completed the long walk off the hill toward the beautiful Affric Lodge, I wondered about its ownership? Later, my in-laws were able to tell me that it belongs to Pippa Middleton, Princess Kate’s billionaire sister. She too has received some negative publicity recently for closing off a 3 km walk that overlooks the Lodge. Regardless of your views on that, the walk off the hill looking down on the lodge and back towards Loch Affric was fabulous. I think a gallery of photos is needed…
Rewilding Glen Affric
One of the most interesting aspects of Glen Affric is its NNR status – it is a National Nature Reserve. Affric Highlands is an area stretching from Glenelg in the west to Drumnadrochit in the east that is owned and managed by just over 20 land owners1, who are working together with the long term vision of improving natural habitats that support biodiversity.
This video produced by Trees for Life explains the ambition of the project.
There are many different views on ‘rewilding’ in Scotland. The stalker I met doesn’t have anything good to say on the subject. Estate agents still sell patches of land in Scotland by appealing to traditional forms of land management, such as grouse and deer hunting – see these particulars from a highland estate agent advertising the land between Mam Sodhail and Loch Mullardoch as a prime example. But even the sceptical see the benefits of rewilding.
And I could not denying the beauty of the Scot’s pinewoods in Glen Affric as I walked back to the car park.
Physics teacher’s sabbatical 
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