With sophie
It didn’t take much to convince my friend Sophie and I to take a day away from our desks mid-week for a mountain bagging adventure. In fact, as soon as we both saw the forecast for a warm and sunny day, we quickly agreed on a plan to walk two Corbetts, Sgùrr na Feartaig and Beinn Tharsuinn, that we had both had our eye on.
Located just an hour from Inverness, the mountains might not be as tall and well known as nearby Munros but the description of the route sounded perfect with a good mix of track, trod and some off-trod navigating. We read that the views would be spectacular, too. (They were!)
The walk to Corbett 1
The route starts at Craig, near Achnashellach, and heads on to a track over the railway level crossing. I recall walking a route from here to three Munros with Hubby G only the year before on an equally sunny day.
Sophie and I followed the wide track as it headed along Glen Carron. Almost from the outset, we enjoyed superb vistas and strolling gently uphill we could see high mountains rising in front of us, including the Munro Sgùrr nan Ceannaichean.
A short way along the track, we took a right and crossed a bridge over River Carron. After a junction and a fork left, we began the climb proper which took us above Sloc Mòr gorge. Every so often, we stopped to look back over our shoulders at the fast growing views of the many mountains behind us.
We stayed on the track, checking the map at each junction, to progress generally south-easterly and then southwards. WalkHighlands was a useful resource for this walk. Eventually, we spotted a cairn that showed the way on to a stalkers’ path and headed on to this to descend, at first, to the Allt a’Chonais.
A wire bridge offered a way across the river. Sophie tackled this first, hilariously showing me how not to make the crossing! I managed to stay a lot more upright on the wobbly two-wire affair simply by crossing on the other side of the bridge.
From here, we walked south, climbing on the path that was mostly obvious. Thanks to a period of dry weather, the ground was fairly dry all over. In wet weather, it could be very boggy.
It was some time before we could see our first Corbett, Beinn Tharsuinn, popping out in front of us above wide Bealach Bhearnais.
From the bealach, we climbed south on an increasingly steep grassy and rocky slope. The ridge tracks in a south-westerly direction to reach the first high point at 817m and then turns more southerly towards the Beinn Tharsuinn summit proper at 863m.
Sophie and I stopped for a while to eat and take in the spectacular wide-ranging views. On a say of sunny weather with no one else around, the Scottish mountains can feel like the best place in the world to be.
On to Corbett 2
We retraced our steps back along the Beinn Tharsuinn ridge and back down the steep slope to the bealach. It was here that we turned west. We had been keeping a close eye on the slope ahead to see if we could spot a route uphill and we were fairly sure we knew the right direction by the time we reach the lowest point beyond the bealach.
Thankfully finding the old stalkers’ path, we traversed the slope at first and then headed north up to Sgùrr na Feartaig summit. A large cairn marks the elevation of 862m.
Again, Sophie and I enjoyed the warm weather on high and stopped to eat and take in the fabulous panorama. The views to the northwest were superb with the great mountains of the Coulin Forest and the iconic peaks of Torridon giants, including the Liathach and Beinn Eighe ridges.
Descent to complete a circuit
The route back to the main track that we had left earlier, descended on a fairly obvious path to the north. We passed a series of lovely lochans and then down over Na Meallanan Buidhe.
It felt like a long route of descent but the weather was lovely and the views were superb – and Sophie and I had plenty to chat about so I hardly noticed the time.
We needed to cross Allt a’Chonais again and his time there was a dodgy looking bridge, comprising a series of narrow wooden planks suspended from wires with two rope handrails. A sign told us: “You use this bridge at your own risk.”
We crossed it with no issues and soon after we rejoined the track we had followed on the ascent.
The walk back was fairly long but, again, it was fine in the good weather and with our non-stop chat. We met a couple of young men who were visiting Scotland from Germany. They had spent the week following a cross-Scotland route and seemed very happy with their adventure.
The total route was 23km with 1320m of ascent.
Full route details
Distance: 23km
Total ascent: 1300m
Corbetts bagged: 124 and 125