Scotnatrail 31-33 Camban-Glomach falls-Moal Bhuidhe-beyond Craig. Stress, decisions, and new friends

Day 31 Camban bothy to Before Glomach falls

I sleep fairly well, I dreamt and don’t want to get up.

Hot porridge for the first time in so long though. May as well use as much of the gas here as I want as I can’t carry it (there was also fire stuff ready but obviously didn’t start one - someone else will need it more. aren’t bothies wonderful? If I can bothy hop I can do it. Today’s stage seems nice ‘ few real navigational challenges and good conditions underfoot’. I hope I can make it to Moal Bhuidhe bothy but that’s a long way. No it’s over 35km. Oh well. Lunch tommorrow

I add peanut butter powder I’ve carried for ages to my porridge. I keep thinking, if the terrains good, if I don’t stop, I’ll reach the bothy… but there are two climbs of nearly 600 m.

’if you were a millionaire what would you do’(I’m supposing I have loads of spare time in this senario!) I would set up a Bothy system for England. I don’t know how you would do it — Scotland relies on remoteness and inaccessibility to keep the bothies so well mentained. But how wonderful it would be. To have a place of peace and quiet to retreat to.

I am stupidly slow getting off given I have no tent to put down. . But oh it is nice in here. So calm. 9:30 set off.

I talk outside the bothy with the two guys from the other half. Dan and Adam who’d walked from cape wrath to the south coast of England with a donkey!!!!! “ Like any good research, one should end up with more questions than answers. If the answer to the questions here are that I’m not alien enough, what would make me more so? I believe the answer is to have a donkey.”https://adamwalks.wordpress.com/2017/10/17/not-alien-enough Madness - it took 5 moths and was brutal particularly cape wrath. All these amazing wonderful strangers to be met.

I sing as I go.

I can’t emphasises enough how impressive - increadible -awe inspiring - the setting of Camban bothy is and the walk that follows. The hills. the green. the grey. the wind in the valley. the clouds above. the light diagonally slanted. You just had be to there. Ah this is too grand for a small person like me. I am just a passer, it would take a long time to belong to these hills. The rocks show pretty metamorphosed curves.

It is the excellent mentained path that makes it possible to marvel. It is still uneven and hard work but nothing compared to bog of pathless lands.

Another bend. Oh shit. A huge gorge - Grandda gorge - to my left the land dropping almost vertically 100, 200 m. A waterfall pouring out of a huge rift in the mountains, all about mountains of rock. a thin layer of green feebly covering the shear volume of their mass. Before me the path leads over tumbled rock falls across a steep steep face. I feel perched on a tiny ledge . Overshadowed by the hills height above me. Balancing above a casm below. .

I reach the rockfall- the path making easy work crossing one of the waterfalls tumbling the hillside - and sit and look back at the big falls for elevenses. I know full well in photographs it’s scale will be lost. Imagine if you could a scale down to the pool at the top of the falls. What if it froze? To ice climb that! There could hardly be a better place on earth. A bird soars down beneath me. Looking back the waterfall I crossed runs from impossibly high.

I pass a couple with rucksacks, they’re on Cape Wrath heading south! Strangely nonchelant about meeting another, and pass by. And they say ‘oh it’s okay’ gets a bit boggy but.’.. shrug. The first people I’ve met who haven’t said it’s awful?!! Maybe the conditions really have improved or maybe they just really didn’t want conversation.

now it feels slightly less inhospitable with the sight of Gleann Lichd house below, a club house of Edinburgh uni mountaineering club, and gentler flow of the river. A Walker says to me. It’s about an hour to the Morvich campsite. Nice.

Meet another cape wrather coming south. She also says it’s not too bad. She says you can’t give up. She says to keep going. I don’t know. I’m tired. Meeting these cape wrath walkers somehow fails to make me feel better, make it obviously manageable. I actually feel a bit grumpy. Yes it maybe easy for you . I’m tired. Maps out again at lunch. Perhaps if I skip from Ullapool to inchandamph. That skips about 60km?

Perhaps if I was less tired, and felt entitled to eat more food I’d be able to get my energy up and wouldn’t feel so grumpy. But don’t want to risk eating too much of it. It is not good that I find the idea that I am not actually alone annoying. I should be happy other people share this experience too, but hearing that there’s a girl my age ahead does not cheer me, I have grown too comfortable with independence. Also I don’t like the orange Dairy milk. Will be glad to get onto the fizzy cherry bar .

The rain and wind, the rain and wind, raved endlessly.

On me the Summer storm, and fever, and melancholy

Wrought magic, so that if I feared the solitude

Far more I feared all company: too sharp, too rude,

Had been the wisest or the dearest human voice.

What I desired I knew not, but whate'er my choice

Vain it must be, I knew….…

That woman I just met keeps playing in my head ‘don’t quit’. Ahhh she was annoying in attitude. Ahhhhh. I want a nice cozy bothy to curl up in. But I won’t be reaching Moal Bhudhe bothy today. Not after sitting at lunch for so long

Ullapool seems such a uncoverable way away. Even Kinlochewe seems such an impossible way away. And time ticks on and I lose rest days at home

My mind is going all sorts of place as I walk on. I wish I could put in headphones but I’ve already use far too much power today. On photos notes and research.

The next part is an Easy plod on a popular route to the falls of Glomach. I look behind and see water - is that an inlet of the sea? Or just another Loch. Another long break beneath a footbridge to filter water. But it is better to take the afternoon Slow.

And when I say I’m tired. I don’t mean physically. There’s little wrong with me that way. Just bored, drained, no longer inspired, had enough Scotland

I’m climbing a horribly steep hill

Then I feel

My pack. Somethings strange. Shit shit

my waterproofs gone. I dump my bag off the path and head back, scrambling down the steep zig zagging path. The last place I know I definitely had it was 5km ago but there’s a chance it’s only 2. Sporadically I break into runs. I’m extremely nervous one of dog walkers I passed heading up will have picked it up.

Shit. It’s not there where I filled up my water.

I pass an old lady. She has t seen it. She mimes her hand cutting across her neck. It’s a dead pursuit

I’m trying desperately to stay calm. The route is impossibly long. I run again and again to reach the last part. Nothing nothing. I call home and cry.

It seems an impossibly long time just to get back to a gate near the start. There is no run in me to get back. I try to look carefully but my mind is wondering all over. What an awful day.

31 days is this where it ends ? Rounding of the month of everything with a waterproof disappearing into nothingnessss

I return to the river where I filtered at 5:40. two hours after I first left. Could it have flown downstream, grey waterproof on grey rocks.? Hardly far. I stand on a rock and scan my eyes up and down. No there’s nothing there.

I am all in a daze as I walk back through the forestry. Eye sore from stareing legs weak to running. The tiredness

Quarter past size when I reach the bag. Midges swam. And they swarm intensely. Coating all my skin. I get out my jumper as protection, and head net. I’m fully covered but unbearably hot climbing this steep slope.

All I want to do is lie down on my high bunk back in camban bothy. Even maps.Me is predicting an hour to walk 2.2 km on this steep terrain. the midges are out in armies. They are awful and I’m not sure how far to go. Climbing and limping up the valley. I cross a steam I could feasibly collect water from. I turn around. And wow. Amongst all of this, and through a Lhasa of midges The view is sublime. Take your breath away sort of unexpectednesss.

I climb a mound above the path. I’m about to say this’ll do it has to. But then realise the midges are so intense it’s hard to believe. I have to go on in the hope that their slightly less bad higher up even though it’s boggy up there.

Ah it’s awful the midges and the sweat and the uncertainty

All will be well

All will be well

All manner of things shall be well

All the other times I’ve met outdoorsy people, have been so unexpectedly compassionate when I told the my uncertainty - the old man camping at the Glen Affric, the two at Camban bothy, the Irish men in Invergarry. But the cape wrath walkers I’ve met today seem to think it’s only achieving the end goal that matters. I feel like I like the other sort more - those who are out here because they love it, and when they tire a bit of beautiful mountains say it is time to go home. I think I’d rather be like those kind people than become a hiker arrogant with success. Maybe humility in not achieving the full aim would be Greater strength? I don’t know. I don’t know. How tempting it is to dream of pride of completion.

But then again. There must still be good experiences to have beyond this pain. Yesterday was full of lovely moments I will always remember. The old man leaning out his tent lit in the evening sim. The beautiful camban bothy and the stars overhead in a river of light.

I don’t want to be one of the arrogant thru hikers I have met. But I do want those beautiful moments. The joy beyond all hope of it. The small eucatastrophes the trail delivers.

Head down and veiled I plod on and on and on. But when I look back and stop (regularly) Even the view veiled by my head net is mad to comprehend: a Pink light filling the airs, and Two huge masses of distant hills glowing pale, while this deep green valley flows to the setting sim.

Finally after an hour I ascend out of the valley to a flat plateau. The midges are hardly less and there is no breeze but I will find a spot here whatever it takes. The guide describes this region as ‘surprisingly bleak and atmospheric ‘ ha! that’s what I need for tonight . Bleak, but a pretty sort of bleak

But the river is dry. All streams have turned to sorry puddles of mud. What am I to do. I pray allowed. Please. I know so deeply I deserve nothing. Just water. Please. I need water .

The deepest river is a bed of dry stones but I can hear water running beneath. A point further down the water pools just enough that I will be able to collect some.

Camp then.

Tent. And water in three collections (just to get enough in the bag. It is a beautiful evening if not for everything. Then eight o’clock. I am sealed in my tent. With only the midges who have made it in with me. But outside it sounds like it is raining: the sound of hundreds of midges bouncing onto my tent.

I know it is a fool hardy thing to do but I heat my water in my tent. I’m very very careful and don’t move while it’s heating(and it’s a very ventilated tent). Just can’t deal with midges. Today has been enough.

In all the… well everything,.. I seem to have lost my hand sanatiser. I will NOT let that be a stressful problem. But I will need to be more cautious about what I touch.

I am not on the edge, or feeling like I am too far down emotionally. But I am conscious of how draining the cry was earlier. soar eyes. tight head. Tired mind.

A warm hot chocolate is welcome. I’ve been very sparing on gas and have more than enough to reach Ullapool so don’t need to be so careful.

So thankful I got dehydrated meals. Pasta is fine but it is not the same.

Maol bhuidhe is probably too close tommorrow. Craig too far (if only all the time I was walking I was moving forward, that would be at least 11 extra kms covered today, as that’s what I did back and forth to search). I will aim for the Bendronaig Lodge bothy, but it is independent so could be locked. That’s 23km not much but, there’s no use pushing this, even if I ought to be going further considering food limitations. This has messed up my plans. It’s a shame as i would liked to have reached Craig tommorrow but it will be two night till I get there. Oh well plans fail, thing go awry, but direction must hold. I learn to become more flexible.

Be not afeard

the isle is full of noises,

Sounds and sweet airs, that give delight,

and hurt not.

Day 32. Before Glomach falls to Moal Bhuidhe. On cape Wrath Trail.

The sunrise was very beautiful through my tent walls on this plateau. Though the clear night was cold -first time I haven’t been complelry sweaty in my sleeping bag though I was still very cozy- and brings damp. I thought I was going to be sick last night. But I feel better in the morning and am thankful for the warm light.

Thankful to yesterday’s self for getting enough water I don’t need to leave the tent.

It is the 1st of September

I have walked for over a month. It is time to change track. I no longer feel I should be dedicated to the trail, though I don’t plan to take the first route home either.

It is time for some mini adventures.

If I treat every day like that maybe it will be fine. I look at my pins on maps.me and think but ahh there’s still so much of Scotland to cover. No. This is not about Scotnatrail. This is about adventure. Enlightenment. Bothy nights. Challenge. Joy.

I hiked for a month. That’s quite an achievement. That’s enough of an achievement. I need no more.

It is also time for a change of clothes. Three days was enough.

Plan ideas: tonight in bothy. Tommorrow I reach Craig. If hostel open stay. See if I can get to Ullapool. They have a bookshop. Book. Mini adventure- island? Circular Walk to schoolhouse bothy? then up to see cape wrath. Tommorrow will be a hard day walking but I can cope.

I may still be walking Scotnatrail in reality but I will be chainging the way I think. Today: a sight seeing trip to the falls of Glomach, followed by lunch in a good spot, bathe if it’s hot enough, then exploring Moal Bhuidhe bothy and onto the next one if I hear rumours it’s open.

The skin is an incredible thing isn’t it. How quickly it can forget the multitude of bites and scratches it suffers.

Packing away the midges are awful. Every surface of me coated in them. But I am so thankful my army fleece is a solid barrier they can’t get through. Without it I am done for. And there’s a special place in heaven for the people who make midge nets. Although they still seem to find ways in I feel releativly safe from them with only the skin of my fingers exposed. Imagine this place in the weather I had near bynack lodge though, that would be utterly awful to endure.

The path up here is easy. And the sun hot though the air is cool. The decent to the waterfall is hard and steep. I hate going down, always when injuries happen so take it very slow. And then I reach the very top of the Falls of Glomach. 113m above its base. If only it were later in the day, I would go swimming here, suspended above the huge casm below.

Thank goodness I catch myself before I go with my bag all the way down to the viewing platform. I leave the bag and scramble the steep descent to see the huge falls.

The suns in the wrong place for the best photos, but at maybe 5/6pm this would be utterly magical. (That’s when I would have got here yesterday too!) the valley deep and still shadowed, but I think by the time I get down the hair raising descent before me it will not.

I make it to the bottom! Stil in glorious cool shade. Would be a shame not to enjoy this victory so take elevenses at 10:30 dipping my feet in the dark pools. It too cold and midgey for a dip. Still more long dangerous descent left. At 11:20 I break out into a Glen where the river that was so loud and wild becomes a silent still Loch

I may still feel tired but I do not feel unhappy at all here. Anticipating my swim at lunch, happy in the knowledge that I have made my descisiom and I do t have to commit to anything. A spring in my step to be waking away from Morvich which I have a great dislike for and towards Moal bhuidhe with all the associated wonderfulness of A mountain bothy.

I sit half way along the Loch and the waters glitter as it is Blown By the wind. feels magical

I’m worried there won’t be good swimming spots with the water so low. But I find a wonderful pool in the river just beyond Iron Lodge. Water. Change. Swim time! cool crystalline water flowing over clefts in the rocks. Clothes lane out to dry in the sun. I lie out too, on the warm rocks. I may not be relaxed but I try to be. Be in this long moment warm and content.

I head back up to the track after two hours. Time to start the long climb.

The climb is so hard and so hot.

I will be stronger

I will go farther

I’m not gonna give up

I will work harder

Climb to a cairn. Afternoon Snack and turning my washing. Except midges (even in this heat!) so snack as I walk

The long walk over the top of the plateau is not near as hard as it could be. But I realise I am just ploughing on mindless of what is about me to reach the bothy. It is such a privilege to be in this increadible land, with such beautiful weather. But that I can’t take it in or appreciate it properly is confirmation that my time on Scotnatrail has finished. This high land is for fresh eyes full of wonder not weary ones, thankful but uncomprehending.

Suddenly the bright white Moal bhuidhe bothy comes into view shining in the sun

Arrive 5:14 The bothy is empty but absolutely fabulous. Why are there books on the double slit experiment in this remotest place?

Id been very much intending to go on to Bendronaig bothy which would make tommorrow much easier (going to be horrible terrain). But searching in the bothy log book did not give me clear answers that it is open (it’s not MBA). It was definitly locked on 17th July.

Oh well no use risking it given I’ve decided I’ve finished the trail and am here to enjoy myself. Let’s enjoy myself reading books and using left gas! Besides 24 km is hardly awful even if the terrain is nasty. Worst of worst cases, that’s 12 hours.

What a treat bothy log books are! A couple proposed here one month ago, the surprise of the writer delightful to read. Further evidence suggests Bendronaig is closed. Well early start of bothy night: more time to love this place.

Day 33. Moal Bhuidhe bothy to coulin pass above Craig. On Cape Wrath Trail

Last night was so wonderful. Bothy full of amazing people and late night chat. I learn so much. I gain so much. I am so content. I am so thankful. A father and daughter from northern ireland, and three guys two Dutch one from London. All cape wrath walkers. I thought I enjoyed being alone but companionship and shared experiences are magical. The bothy too is so lovely. Midges. Food. Little sleep with all the noises but worth it (four of us in fire room, two upstairs). Feeling so utterly safe again: what it is to be human- shelter, warmth, food, drink, company. All these ticked and nothing more to complicate life and the result is contented happiness.

I tell the others as I head off, Good luck, I’ll see you in Craig but late, I’m planning to look at all the mountains. I stay drinking coffee and reading the fascinating information panel that recounts the memory of Ian Mackey who grew up at nearby Plait. They had a school teacher who would travel around spending two weeks with each of the remote families, and would be snowed in with provisions for months over winter.

More bothy book reading - “it will be hard to put into words the emotions this place conjures up when describing it to my friend back home”- josh 18/8/20

I should donate to MBA. I am utterly in love with bothies. Imagine wintering here amid snow.

Tolkien’s hobbits are so loved because of the value and joy they find in homely things and simple comforts; every walking song includes plenty of fire and bed. I love walking and I am thankful for my small experiences of wilderness but I’m a homely sort of person. Give me a roll of yarn a few books a stack of logs for the fire and let me sit in the calm of a bothy while the wind blows outside and the stars fly by.

9:45 when I say fairwell to fair Moal bhuidhe.

I know today will be very tough but hopefully knowing there will be friends at the end will make it much easier. It is a day of constantly scanning for the hint of a path or compression in the heather heading at lest slight to the direction I want to go.

Reach Loch Calavie for elevenses then an easy track for a very long route around Cheescake

It is a baking hot day. I run out of water quicker than expected. Filter from a midgey lake then second collection at lunch by a stream to wash my feet (concerned about some raw points that I dont want to go bad in my humid shoes). Too lazy to squeeze the filter I get A nice set up of rocks.

Very pleasant break but shouldn’t be too long today. It is almost unbearably hot in my tired state walking on the hard though still pathed terrain.

I said I’d get there late and I will do. But not because I’m looking at mountains , because I’m too darn slow. By half an hour the path is increadibly faint. Doing my duty opening it for future walkers. It heads deep into a valley that seems nearly untouched since a glacier slumped it moraine below.

One lone warm bilberry.

The sheer faces of the nameless hill (795m) towering beside me are great and terrible. I’ve been surprised by how much easier it was than I thought- the path faint but very much existent. That is till I crossed Alt Coire Bheithe when I lose my track and it seems to be an unending up down up down over tiny but steep drumlin mounds. This is impossible to make progress on

My only aim becomes to move one step at a time deeeper up the valley. No use looking too far ahead. Just look before each foot and go on heading in the right kind of direction. I’m certain there re better paths than this one but I am relieved now and again to see foot prints In the bog (thankfully bog isn’t the biggest problem here, just horrible hummocky terrain on many scales. . My fizzy cherry chocolate was meant to last till tommorrow. Oh well

The hummocky drumlin ground (I don’t know what it actually is I call everything glacial and lumpy drumlins) improves slightly but becomes littered with rockfall which hardly makes it easier. Why the hell am I scrambling along the steep screw covered sides of this horrible Glen rather than deeper down where it’s flatter walking? But I don’t want to lose my height by going down.

I cross diagonally and it gets a bit less technical though still exhausting: every rise I expect to be able to see something but there’s just more and more behind.

I like pretty u shipped glacial valleys outlined by the sunset. I don’t like whatever this is. Except maybe from a helicopter.

A big Boulder comes into view, is that, could it be, the top?

It is.

Bealach Bhernais

4pm.

The shadows on the big rock seem to make a :/ face. Mine is the same, knowing I have to descend what I came up.

This time however I am determined I will not Lose the path, which I find nice and broad at the top. But first, afternoon snack.

The descent is hard on my knees but a hundred thousand times better than the ascent with a clear path. I stop on the way down realiseing I will miss mountains, in the year to come, and I am not Looking. I stop to Look. And watch as tiny cloud project huge shadows, moving slowly across the mass of land before me.

An hour after I was at the top a new view opens to the north: the next Glen to pass through; and my long winding track clear to see. Ahhh it’s a very long way still.

At the valley bottom a precarious two wire bridge is set up. But I don’t want to play games and Ford the low river.

Would be very happy to stop here. But ought to get to Craig to see how my friends are, and I said I would.

This long easy track is gruelling - particularly with added cyclists who say ‘ oh you can’ thinking that is encouraging to say I can get to Cape Wrth. Why? Why does one need to get there? No. I am content. I have finished Scotnatrail and am having some mini adventures, that just happen to be along the trail.

Conversation with Another cyclist Makes me more happy. It is a beautiful walk, easy, lit by warm afternoon light on yellow green grass. Someone else should be here.

As I stop at a high point in awe of the view before me the nice cyclist I talked to before comes up behind and we chat. ‘I’ve climbed every one of those.’ The round peaks silhouetted indescribably beautifully by the evening sun. They look untouchable, unclimbable, unreal. Beautiful. He has 8 Munro’s left after doing three today.

Although now and again I wish the last long section over I have gained the patience to be able to let it flow by, slowly but by nether the less. There we go. Achievement.

I rech Craig and call mum. I see no sign of my friends looking in at Garrys hostel and from the rumours dont feel inclined to enquire so i will go on. A dangerous road walk then increasing steep overgrown climb in full jumper for midge pritevtion up a narrow path is not how this day should be ending. (Already quite past 7)

It is really beautiful though. Apparently there’s views of Skye though I don’t understand how. Thank god I collected more water than I needed. Theres none to be got on this narrow path.

You know what, this IS beutiful. It’s my penultimate night on trail, what’s the need for rest when I could be seeing light like this. Gold behind hills, grey on grey on paler grey. I wish I could get both the purple of the heather and the heavenly light in focus on the same picture. Though the path remains clear, often young pines have grown their arms interlocking across it. And you have to push through the branches that cross like spiky springs

The route finally joins a track and eases off a bit. At a small steam I collect a whole bag of water, unsure if they’ll be anywhere up top of Coulin pass where could be a camp spot. Looks like someone else has also cut a way to the stream here. It’s heavy, but if I nievly carried 4.5l up the three brethren I can certainly manage this easily! This is an evening of light remarkably like the three brethren, obviously not quite it’s equal, but still.

I had wondered if I would see the other guys camping here but no. Maybe they are at Gerry’s hostel after all?

I sing the Welsh lullaby as I walk. Then I see two tent- is it the Irish farther an daughter? Their doors are closed and I feel strange calling. I’ll just go a bit further on and maybe they’ll pass me tommorrow Morning.

I settle on a spot a little after them. The midges do swarm but nothing could be more appropriate on my penultimate night. Camping alone to a beautiful view and midges. And the water filters brown too to add to the reminder of Scotland (not the weather though! I would have my tent door open to view it, but then the midges swarm in the porch rather than outside. Got a bagpipe under the arm set up so I can work as I filter.

The light is dim by the time I’m eating -9pm.