Day 9 - Wild camp past Loch Carn nan Chonbhairean to Glencoul bothy (21K, 600m ascent)
As we’d been pitching the tents the night before, another weather front had started to blow in, so I’d pretty much chucked the tent up and thrown most of my gear into the porch, trying to flatten the snow down as much as possible. Fortunately all of the condensation that had soaked the fly from the previous night had turned to ice and was easily shaken off.
After a warming meal of spaghetti and meatballs, I tried to deny the call of nature for as long as possible, not relishing a squat in a snow drift, but it became inevitable. Looking up, there was one small, clear patch of sky left unclouded through which a huge number of tiny stars glittered onto the snow fields. The wind was buffeting me so I yanked up my Paramo salopettes and dived back into my tent, pulling off my boots and leaving them in the porch.
I was awake at 6am having had a pretty fitful night’s sleep. It had been cold and the tent had been buffeted all night by strong winds. I never doubted the resilience of the Hilleberg Akto, but it does keep you in a constant state of half sleep. The process of getting ready seemed even slower this morning and I had barely any appetite despite the exertions of yesterday. I forced down a couple of cereal bars and went to get my boots on.
Opening the door to the porch, all I could see was a big pile of snow that had drifted under the fly in the night and covered all my kit including my boots which were now frozen rigid. I shouted across to Bob who had his leather boots atop his MSR, not something I fancied trying with technical fabric and a Jetboil! I really couldn’t see a way I was going to get the boots on. I got my feet half into them and started to slop around hoping the exertion of taking the tent down would thaw them - it didn’t. In the end it took a super human struggle with Bob standing on the end of them to wrench my feet into the boots. Big lesson learned and at least we were warm as we struck of into a growing blizzard.
The path ahead was mostly obscured by snow. We’d pick it up in places and then lose it again. Mostly we walked on a series of bearings, our only reference in the otherwise completely featureless surroundings of Ben More. Going was slow and tiring in deep snow drifts and by the time we reached the frozen shore of Gorm Loch Mor we were both already tired.
At this point we lost whatever ghost of a path we’d had to date and skirted the shores of the loch, looking for a suitable crossing point. It was tempting to try and head across the ice and save ourselves the rough lochside hack. By this stage my Platypus had frozen again and I was starting to get pretty dehydrated. I clipped my mug to the front strap of my rucksack and resorted to drinking from whatever water source I came across.
A steepish climb straight up through waist deep snow to the col below Cnoc an Fhuarain Bhain and a fun lollop down the other side brought us to the track at the end of Loch an Eircill. It was only here that I began to relax. The area we had just crossed was about as remote as the trail gets and we had done it in challenging conditions. Wind chill had been extreme at times and navigation tricky. If one of us had injured ourselves, it would have been a serious situation.
But we were both now exhausted by our exertions in the deep snow and it was a case of putting one foot in front of the other as we wound down the glen towards the sea. I put on a bit of a spurt, reasoning that I could look for some driftwood and try and get a fire going at the bothy. As darkness fell on the glen I stared up at the ice encrusted cliffs and felt awed by their age and majesty. A thunderstorm hovered in the distance, bathing the glen occasionally in a strange purplish lightning.
It was a relief to reach the bothy, sited in a magnificent location at the head of Loch Glencoul. And to my immense excitement I noticed a big pile of coal and firewood in the corner. By the time Bob arrived, I had a fire crackling in the grate and my boots were releasing a steady dribble of ice water onto the hearth. As we ate, we both reflected on what we agreed had been one of the most challenging days either of us had experienced in the mountains. This was why we had decided to do the trail in winter. To test ourselves against the conditions that we were now starting to experience. But we still had a long way to go and the forecast was for more snow. Lots more snow.
Journal entry for Sunday 20 December - “Best mountain day ever? We were on the edge with no margin for error whatsoever, but it was fantastic, one of the most challenging mountain days ever. Tired and warm now, a good combination. Just two days now until we reach Kinlochbervie.”
