Morar.

http://www.crux.u-net.com -> Corbetts ->Section 10b->Morar

---

Section 10b Sgurr a'Bhac Chaolais 885 Buidhe - bheinn 885 Beinn na h-Eaglaise 804 Beinn Loinne 790 Sgurr Mhic Bharraich 781 Beinn nan Caorach 773 Sgurr a'Choire-bheithe 913 Sgurr an Fhuarain 901 Sgurr nan Eugallt 894 Ben Aden 887 Fraoch Bheinn 858 Sgurr Cos na Breachd-laoidh 835 Sgurr Coire Choinnichean 796 Beinn na Caillich 785 Ben Tee 901 Sgurr Mhurlagain 880 Meall na h-Eilde 838 Geal Charn 804 Meall Dubh 788 Streap 909 Bidein a'Chabair 867 Carn Mor 829 Sgurr an Utha 796 Beinn Bhan 796 Meall a'Phubuill 774 Braigh nan Uamhachan 765 Section 4 Section 9 Section 10a Section 11 Return to Corbett index Return Home.

Loch Morar from Sron a'Choin, Carn Mor. Carn Mor 829m 2718' Big Hill/Cairn  Map Bidean a'Chabair(Sgurr na h-Aide) 867m 2818' Hawk's Peak(Hat shaped peak)  Map

.

Carn Mor 829m

Looking east along Loch Morar.

Morar is a land where the ice age bit hardest, Not only did the ice surging from the great inland icecap carve out Scotland's deepest loch, but also several great passes, not high passes with a zig zag trail over a lofty ridge, but near sea level trenches cut clean through the hills.

Carn Mor and Sgurr na h-Aide are the remnants left between the passes. In the spaces that are not these hills, the ice has carved the deep gorges that are three of the West's most celebrated passes. Munro baggers are probably familiar with the Mam na Cloich Airde, the well trodden mudway to Knoydart. Fewer traverse blocked Glen Pean to the south of Carn Mor, that way only leads to a loch. Least visited of all is the amazing Gleann an Lochain Eanaiche, bold and deep at the Morar end but emerges almost like a rabbit hole in the flanks of Glen Dessary.

The two hills, while flanked by similar depths, are quite different in character. Chabair/Aide , so slender and reputedly oft mistaken for Sgurr na Ciche, is a long and narrow ridge. There are few secrets corners here, long slabby flanks plunge from either side all the way to sea level. Carn Mor, is every bit the big pile. It's a vast hill of corries and ridges. Its steep like, its neighbour, yet gives a more elephantine appearance especially when seen blocking the head of Loch Morar, as if it's the bulk of Carn Mor that squeezes the narrowness into the passes. It turns out that Carn Mor has a very intimate relationship with both the Loch and Glen Pean. Someone said that the Corbetts lacked a sense of complexity and mass. This hill is an exception to this statement is several miles long and strongly resembles Beinn Fhada in Kintail.

Anyone trying to move eastward from Oban at the head of Loch Morar will have to do battle with Carn Mor. Going to Kinlochmorar and Gleann Eanaiche , the Strone must be passed. The Strone , Sron a'Choin, is the southernmost of the two west ridges, and falls into the loch., the walker has to go over it, no tidal reprieve like at the head of Loch Nevis. This is always a stiff little climb and can prove to be quite annoying.

If you are going up Glen Pean, you have to accept the fact that a fair part of Carn Mor has fallen into the glen. The route through the pass challenges a bizarre garden of blocks and slumps, concealing green pools and silk screen trees hanging from boulder tops. Here a slope has failed, and the monstrous landslip has left a fine crag of the steepest schist above the chaos filling the glen below. Above here is a famous example of a post glacial slope failure, The hill started to slump towards the glen, as the rock slipped crevasses opened in the rock. They are here now, as you will find them on Beinn Donich , and are real hazard under snow.

The narrows of Glen Pean, here the pass is filled with landslip debris from Carn Mor (right). The peak seen through the pass is An Stac.

I have said that Carn Mor is like Beinn Fhada, like Beinn Fhada it has a plateau bit and a narrow ridge bit, in this case a lobster claw of two narrow ridges divided by a corrie at the west end. Again like Beinn Fhada it is possible in a long day to do a circuit of the hill, via a pair of fine passes. Describing this route gives an opportunity to get to know this vast hill.

Strathan at the end of Loch Arkaig is a popular place, and there are always a lot of cars left here. Their occupants almost invariably doing battle with Section 10b of Munros Tables. This means that any company you may have at the car park will be left behind as you turn south into Glen Pean. Its hard to believe that this was considered an inaccessible and rather mysterious area and was rarely visited when I first started travelling the hills. It took me four attempts to hitch a lift to the end of Arkaig, and most of my Munro trips here involved walk ins from places such as Kintail, Knoydart and Loch Ailort. Some may still find this preferable to the rollercoaster of the Arkaig road.

My map in those days was a sheet of blue and brown paper, little green. It was a disappointment to find that Glen Dessary and Glen Pean had been planted. The round of Carn Mor will start and finish under sitka spruce. The idiotic no bikes sign is still there at Strathan road end. Is this the daftest most hypocritical goml sign anywhere? Environmental damage? What to? Thousands of factory farmed Alaskan trees and a metalled road? The estate , Glen Dessary are even campaigning for us to use the forest road rather than old path north of the river. Its OK for folk to walk past our front doors, why not you? Fortunately, after a short squelch of hellbog you enter a wide space of meadow under Sgurr Thuilm and Carn Mor. Now Carn Mor is free of the trees and shows its pudding side. Many go up from here or opposite on the Dessary side, but the royal route is through the pass ahead and up from the shores of Loch Morar.

The old house, Glen Pean.

The original house in Glen Pean was on the south side of the river, but after repeated flooding the inhabitants built a new, still standing house opposite. Beyond here there is little room for habitation as the the glen narrows to the boulder choked gash described above. Before the boulders you pass Loch Leum an-t-Sagairt. This is the scene of one of the Ordnance Survey's great cock ups. They marked the path as running along the northern shore of the loch, this is a route suitable only for goats or leaping priests. The path, no more than a series of narrow sheep trods, makes its exposed way high above the southern shore. There is no easy ground here.

A bit of bog later, the path skirts the great landslide on the southern side, its fun to follow blind paths into all the neuks here. A ruined fence and the descent to Morar is completed on a fine pony track.

The return is via the black cragged gash of Gleann Lochain Eanaiche. This deep glen runs inland from the ruin of Kinlochmorar. While there is still a house at Oban, South Morar, North Morar's Kinlochmorar was blown up in 1968, either as a dangerous ruin or as a poaching deterrent. To get there you have to cross the Strone (and the deep burn before it, this is not a wet weather route.) The second ridge is easily passed and once over/through the Abhainn Ceann Loch Morar, its back on a good pony track . There now follows some of the grandest scenery anywhere in Scotland. You know those victorian paintings with highland cattle wading beneath improbable crags? The crags are really like that here (no cattle though). The best bit is by the loch, set between some of the steepest hillsides in the country, soon after the path vanishes and the glen opens out to the merely spectacular. This is not big sky country. It is worth remembering that in the depths of this glen, that there are no Munros in the heights above you, another reminder that they have no monopoly on grandeur.

Beyond the loch, look for the Saltire Stone, you will recognise it when you see it. I have never read of this feature, which would be famous if not tucked away in this remote fold.

Now you are back below the bulky part of the hill, the route taking a narrow fault through the pass. The glen is still narrow, no longer a grand slash in the hills, but a small canyon, a narrow slot just below the surface of the hills, a curious feature either due to faulting or a dyke. You need the old technique of continuously crossing the burn to traverse the gash and then you are back in amongst the trees. They have planted across the glen here. To progress you must climb a wee bit to the corner of the forest before dropping back into Glen Dessary. There are two routes here, the old path or the modern, bike-phobic forest road. Its bound to be anticlimactic after climbing out of Eanaiche, but the easy going will be welcomed by the wet feet.

Carn Mor can be climbed from several points around the circuit, but its best to avoid the steep (and crevassed) stuff above the narrow bits of the passes. If possible go up from Loch Morar. Lumpy Carn Mor is a far finer proposition from here.

I have been through Gleann Eanaiche twice. The first time was an Easter trip to Sgurr na Ciche. No car meant funny routes. We left from Loch Ailort, pushed the packs over to Loch Beoraid, past the birch cloaked Prince Charles' cave and set off down the estate road to the cut off community of Meoble. Centre of the South Morar Estate. We were slightly apprehensive about this as this sequestered place had a bit of a reputation, but we were still unprepared for the reception.

You know those dogs that hang about popular walks, and attach themselves to passing walkers for some crafty exercise. (we had one with us on Morrone), well Meoble had to go one better. By the old school and guarding the hill path over to Gleann Cul na Staca and the end of Morar was a young hind. Now deer live in herds on the hill, and walk all day. As soon as we turned up, the deer greeted us as long lost family. We were going to spend all day on the hill, that's a deer thing, so the hind was going to do deer things with us.
We were worried. There was no way of getting rid of what was obviously somebody's pet, so any hope of continuing to Knoydart was fading fast. Imagine turning up at the ferry. 'Excuse me Mr Watt, Two adults and a hind please'. There was no escape. We stopped for a rest, Morag (for now she had taken the name of the local version of Nessie) would go away, graze awhile or have a roll in the peat,(it was a hot day), we would try and sneak off. This was always answered by hooves running down the hill and the tree of us would continue eastward, Me first, deer second and Frances following 'be-hind'. It was a fascinating insight into deer life, the joys of a peat bath and spotting the good grazing, if there is any good grazing in early April.

More fun on the lawn outside the shell of Oban. We got the tent up, and soon found out that there was no room for us and deer in the tent. Morag soon got the message and settled down to some cud chewing just outside the door as we cooked up our pasta (no we did not have venison). Then the London couple turned up expecting a lonely campsite and finding one peapod, a couple eating their tea, with the local wildlife curled up outside the tent. By now the game was lost, and we started being friendly to the deer. Throughout our walk we had tried to drive her off. Fortunately, during the night,. our companion left on her own accord and probably made it back to Meoble in a fraction of the time it took us to walk in. We were free again, and a few days later were safely on the boat out of Inverie, without any deer.

My second visit was also during Easter, many years later. This time the weather was foul, and I had the two Morar Corbetts on the hit list. Again I was to stay at the end of Loch Morar, only I had a car now and could drive to Strathan like everyone else. No deer danger, but a tough walk through Glen Pean in the morning and a hard ascent of Carn Mor in the afternoon/evening. I went up by the Strone, and instead of following the rough path down to Kinlochmorar I continued up the ridge to the summit. This was the usual Rough Bounds formula, bog and small crag, always magnified by the mist into something more sinister.

The ridge merged into the plateau, and I actually met someone, just below the summit. I remember little of the summit, except there was a series of knolls, and it felt higher than it was. Leaving the top was an anxious time. Carn Mor is magnetic. OK it does not send the compass wild like the Cuillin, but like Sgurr an Utha and Ladhar Bheinn it can cause problems. It was a great moment when the mist parted to give a short glimpse of a vast sheet of water and the Rum Cuillin and I was on the way down the other western ridge. It would be a great way in up the loch, and that night I met three folk who had canoed up Loch Morar. They were in for a struggle back as the weather worsened the following day. Despite the ridge line, Druim na h-Ile Coire proved to be a tough and steep descent. It really is a big hill, and a fitting end to a big day on a big hill in the wild wet West.

 

Bidean a'Chabair 867m 

Misty Bidean a'Chabhar above Kinlochmorar.

Bidean a'Chabhair , also known as Sgurr na h-Aide, the name given by the OS to the west top, is a much simpler animal than its massive southern neighbour. It's a single steep sided ridge stretching 13km as the southern wall of Loch Nevis and Glen Dessarry. With its two sharp tops it shows well along Dessarry as a sharp spike, reputedly often mistaken for Sgurr na Ciche.

A hill this steep and narrow could be expected to carry scrambling and although there are no Forcan style ridges, you will need to put hand to rock in order to traverse its two tops. Another requirement is coping with steep and exposed ground. Bidean a'Chabhair is brutally steep, there are no easy ways up, engage low gear now.

Most ascents will be made from the end of Loch Arkaig, although it's a long way in even from here. Perhaps this is a hill for the stravaiger, but you may want to stash the pack before the ascent. Other ways in are from Inverie or Tarbet, probably the best way of all is canoeing up the lochs, the hill is a fine objective for the sea kayak.

Situated between Loch Nevis and Morar, with uninterrupted views to the west, I would expect great views off this hill, but of course I was there on a wet day, most days here are wet, and saw the usual internal organs of a ping pong ball. Easter seems to attract evil weather. My ascent was from the head of Loch Morar, past the ruins of Kinlochmorar, a house blown up so as to remove a poaching base and up the evil grind of the Bealach na Daoine. This hurt.. At least it was grassy easy going, but this is as easy a crossing of the ridge as you are going to get, so probably has a long history of use, did the old Highlanders struggle here too? Modern backpackers come this way too, crossing to Finiskaig at the head of Loch Nevis and on to Knoydart.

Once the 670 meteres of hard labour are over it was but a short steep ridgewalk to the first top. It poured down,turning to sleet, and the wet snow cover made the scrambly descent a little exciting. The gentler reascent of the main top was almost a rest, but then there was the small matter of descent.

A direct descent to the south is unwise, very unwise. A contender in the steepest slope in Scotland race, it's a vicious collection of slabs and steep grass falling away 700m in as many metres. Move away to the east a bit, down to the 650m contour and the slope becomes merely extremely steep, and remains grassy. Thanks to having a 1:25 000 map I was confident that a descent here would go, and it did. My new boots made a nasty mess of my wet feet, it hurt my knees something rotten, but it went. I was spat out of the cloud just above the Saltire Stone, back on the comfy path of Gleann Lochain Eanaiche. One day I will see this glorious glen in clear weather, the Rough Bounds at their very roughest.

All that was left was the long cold, wet hobble on the blisters back to the end of Loch Arkaig. Fortunately I remember very little of this struggle. Oh the joy of new boots.

Top of the page Return to index.

Return Home.

A* 14th October 2004