Cape Wrath Trail in May 2009 - report from Alan Bellis
Alan Bellis got in touch with his excellent report and route description from his expedition in May 2009 (click on post title for link). Some stunning photos. My favourite observation was “even though [this section] looks easy on the map, its hard work” - never a truer word spoken!
We actually camped at the exact spot pictured by the bench next to the River Oykel, the night before the snow hit us big style. I guess the biggest contrast with our trip is the sort of distance you can cover when you have a decent amount of light. We really had 5-6 hours of light at best and frequently set off pre-dawn. We therefore tried wherever possible to limit days to 20k. There were many times in the run up to the trip that I was tempted to double up days, but in retrospect, although we reached a few destinations earlyish, if the weather had been fouler, the route would still have allowed us to stay on schedule.
My favourite picture is the one by a roaring fire at Shenavall Bothy. We arrived to find a perfect coal fire built and ready at the end of a long, hard day - I’m eternally grateful to whoever did that.
On the wall at Shenavall, someone had written, “life is but a fleeting moment, live it for every day”. That sort of sums up why I took this whole challenge on in the first place and it’s always great to hear from others who’ve had their boots in the same bogs.
