Glen Roy

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Section 9 896 Gairbeinn 878 Carn an Fhreiceadain 862 Meall na h-Aisre 824 Geal-charn Mor 817 Carn a'Chuilinn 817 Carn Dearg 811 Carn na Saobhaidhe 768 Carn Dearg 834 Carn Dearg 805 Beinn Iaruinn Section 4 Section 10b Section 10a Section 11 Return to Corbett index Return Home.

Creag Meagaidh from Loch Squadaig on the southernmost Carn Dearg. Beinn Iaruinn 805m 2636' Iron hill.  Map Carn Dearg(Brunachan) 834m 2736' Rounded red hill.  Map Carn Dearg(Glen Turret North) 817m 2677' Another red pudding.  Map Carn Dearg(Glen Turret South) 868m 2523' Rather a lot of red lumps around here.  Map *Promoted in 1981 edition.

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Beinn Iaruinn 805m

 

Beinn Iaruinn from Carn Dearg(Brunachan).

 

Glen Roy is a hidden backwater, far removed from through routes and the Munro circuit has a cluster of Corbetts arranged around its headwaters. Confusingly, of the four hills, three are called Carn Dearg. Now Carn Dearg may be a common name, but three clumped together like this is taking the proverbial. It gets worse, there are also two Leana Mhor's one either side of the glen. I wonder if the OS were given conflicting information when they first surveyed here.

Beinn Iaruinn, (mind if I call you Carn Dearg to save confusion) enjoys its nominative independence as the high point of a long ridge between Glen Gloy and Glen Roy. This is plateau country, a vast tableland that stretches from Spean Bridge to the Laich of Moray. No sharp peaks here, the landscape is defined by long steep sided glens. Beinn Iaruinn is very much the product of the deep glens that surround it. Here at the west end of this upland area, the hills are very heathery, and an ascent of Iaruinn will cover relatively dry ground covered by wiry heather. The soils are thin, and the heather is a welcome grip on the steep ascent of this hill.

Glen Roy's most famous feature is probably best seen on the slopes of Beinn Iaruinn. These are the parallel roads, real life contour lines etched along the slopes throughout Glen Roy, Glen Gloy and Glen Spean. I have seen a similar feature in Glen Affric, but have read nothing of the phenomenon there. They were once thought to be hunting roads, game clearings cut by the King's servants or of Fingalian origin. The game is given away by the fact that they are of constant elevation, faithfully following a contour line. The roads were beach lines. 19th century scientists were fascinated by the glen, Charles Darwin and Louis Agassiz were amongst the visitors.

Darwin plumped for a marine origin, but it was Agassiz that came up with the explanation. The roads were the shorelines of lakes formed behind a glacial advance. The ice in Glen Spean and the great glen dammed up a vast lake in Glen Roy. One by one cols were breached and the lake flooded away, finding a new level. There are three such levels corresponding with cols and thus three parallel roads. These are shown very clearly on the OS 1:50 000 map, sheet 34 Lakes like this can be found today in areas still in the ice age like Svalbard. The roads do not offer good going, being sloping and somewhat stony. Many travel up the glen to the SNH nature reserve to see the roads, and they are fortunate. Glen Roy is a National Nature Reserve for a reason. The Forestry Commission had planned to plant the glen in the 1950's. This would have damaged the roads with drainage ditches and extraction tracks. A compromise was reached , and only the lower glen was planted.

Beinn Iaruinn is accessible from Glen Gloy or Glen Roy. Glen Gloy was sold in 2002, until then, it was none too welcoming a glen. Peter Lincoln was accosted walking along the public road during his marathon Munro, Corbett and Graham walk. I don't know how I would react to such arrogance, collapse laughing, probably. What it is like now, I don't know. Approaches from Gloy are longer but more gentle, but the previous owners have done a lot of improvement works on the estate including a lot of tree planting, so there are possibly fences in the way as well.

Like most folk I went up from Glen Roy. No trees, a short approach makes this an ideal 'quickie'. There is however a price to be paid. It is brutally, in places, dangerously steep. A small corrie, featurless for there to be no climbing yet steep enough to kill you, is all that puctuates a simple steep flank.The cropped heather makes for quick going though.

I have had several attepts at this hill. Firstly , while staying in the glen, we were washed out, a long and wet walk down the road to Roy Bridge in boots disintegrating with age was the only option. I remember changing into merely wet clothes in the porch or the Stronlossit, before spending afternoon in front of the log stove. Maybe not the wettest day I have ever had, but a candidate. The boots died soon after and I then began my long association with the Scapa Manta.

Attempt number two was on a similarly foul day, and this time I cycled up the glen. On the point of stashing the bike, I slashed the front tyre on a stone (it's a terrible if beautiful road) and spent a sleety afternoon putting in a spare tube, before nervously setting off down the glen for Fort William and a new tyre. It has always been a regret that I have not used a bike more for hill access in Scotland. New rail regulations make it so much harder, but it is still a very satisfying way of getting around.

These early attempts were all from Nancy Smith's Hostel in Fersit. Strangely enough, Fasgadh did not play a part in my successful visit in the autumn of 1990. This time I got a lift in from Laggan after the MBA AGM. My driver was set on a Carn Dearg, no I don't know which one, I plumped for the quick, iron hard Iaruinn, from the hairpin and bridge at 300880. I had been tipped off by Hamish Brown's book against the ridge on the south of Coire nan Eun. It was an uncomplicated ascent and rewarded by a snowy plateau, but little shelter from a bitter wind. I always remember this as a dark hill, a product of midwinter visits and the heather I suppose.

Few hills have had such a variable height as Beinn Iaruinn. My modern 1:50 000 map has 803, previous maps had no spot height, nor is there one on the so called new "Explorer" 1:25 000 map. Alan Dawson's research has the height now at 805m, and this is quoted in the 2002 SMC guide. As well it is not on a list boundary.

Not lingering at the summit, except to marvel at the proximity of the Lochay Hills, I made a rough descent back to the road from the north . Although rough and steep there were no complication beyond a sharp snow shower, and on reaching the glen I had little time to wait before getting a lift back out to Roy Bridge. Iaruinn proving an ideal hill for a late start in the dark months.

 

 

Carn Dearg(Brunachan,Glen Roy) 834m 

The summit, looking towards Beinn a'Chaoruinn and Creag Meagaidh.

Yet another Carn Dearg. This time with a little more character having several corries as well as the parallel roads. Its a vast hill sprawling over much of Glen Roy, from where most ascents are made. Probably the best starting point is the footbridge at NN330909, although the Roy is wadeable in normal conditions at Brunachan, someway downstream.

The lower slopes are rather heathery and hard going, but higher up its great roaming country with some very unusual views of Creag Meagaidh.

I did the hill in the pre car years from the usual base of Nancy's at Fersit. It was easy enough to walk to the hill from there, as long as I could get a lift down the glen afterwards, a bit far for a there and back. Once I had a nightmare retreat from a doss in Glen Roy, walking the whole way and spending an afternoon steaming in front of the Stronelossit's fire. That day finished off a notorious pair of boots, that were nothing but a source of pain.

The easiest way in from Tulloch, having crossed the Laggan Dam (possible in those days) was over the personally notorious Beinn Teallach. From a previous trip, the one where I discovered it to be a Munro, I knew that it was an easy walk, and was soon puzzling over its cairn, was it really over 3000'?. It was obviously more popular now than previously, there being some wear and tear around the cairn I have dined out on Beinn Teallach ever since I was the lucky person who first saw the new edition of Munro's Tables in Nevisport. Excited at the implications of a 915m spot height, I enthusiastically told my fellow guest at Nancy's that I had a found a new Munro, before realising that my victim was the joint editor of the Tables, Hamish Brown. Since then I have had a hand in a couple of minor changes, but there are far more keen eyes at that game nowadays.

The promotion caused a bit of a gold rush, and the stationmaster at Tulloch could not understand why so many folk were suddenly using the station or kipping in the waiting room.

The North side of Beinn Teallach is as easy as the South and I was soon at boggy Loch Sguadaig, enjoying the fist falling over the Coireardair hills. By now the day had turned very fine, making an enjoyable stroll over the tundra to Carn Dearg.

I remember the descent was a bit of a pig, steep and heathery, but at least the river was an easy wade and I quickly got a lift down to Roy Bridge.

The lower part of Glen Roy has a lot of stories attached to it and is a candidate for the most haunted corner of the land. The severed heads passed this way on the way to the Well of the Heads at Loch Oich, the old farm of Cranachan has a bit of a reputation. The farm is gone now, submerged beneath the Sitka, but around about 1770 folk were said to disappear here, victims of a malevolent troll like being. Eventually the folk called upon a priest to exorcise the place and a mass was held in the troll's burn. Today on the roadside by Cranachan you may see a carved stone. This is what remains of that mass stone. It was damaged during road building and later retrieved and carved with I.H.S. and a chalice by a young man training for the priesthood.

Seton Gordon recalls several such stories including ones of fairy abduction in the area. I myself know more than one person who has had an uncomfortable time visiting Cranachan. I only passed that way once, the day I proposed to Frances, after a wet walk to the pub from Fersit, between Creag Dubh and Beinn Teallach.

 

Carn Dearg(North of Glen Turret) 817m 

Set well back from the Great Glen, and somewhat anonymous, lurk a brace of Carn Deargs. Both hills are domes set above a wilderness of peat hags, the sort of country that Hamish Brown would say 'makes Kinder look like a garden' . By now the true character of the Roy-Monadhliath plateau is set, this is webbed foot country.

Why two Carn Deargs? My guess is that the Ordnance Survey forgot the adjectives, were they once mor and Beag? They definitely fit the carn part of the name, real puddings!

While not winning any mountaineering plaudits, the hills are famous for more than the abundant summer birdlife and the parallel roads. One of the greatest feats of guerrilla warfare involved these hills, but no one yet knows exactly how.

Deep in the dark days of the mid 17th Century, James Graham, the Marquis of Montrose has switched sides to the king and had raised an army of Highlanders and Irishmen to challenge the Covenanter Campbells. After one feat of long distance warfare, he took the Campbell's capital, Inverary and then headed north hoping to meat up with more Highlanders in the Great Glen. It was January, supplies were low, and the glen was a trap. He found himself stuck in Kilcumin, now Fort Augustus. There were Covenanter armies at both ends, Seathforths in the north and the Duke of Argyll and the Campbells following from the south. Scouts, possibly Ian Lom, the Bard of Keppoch himself, brought news of a large Campbell force camped at Inverlochy Castle, where Fort William is now. Soon the enemy would advance along the glen.

The solution was desperate, desperation borne of necessity. Montrose disappeared his army. They vanished into wild land around the Carn Deargs. After two and a half days, the lost army reappeared, on the foothills of Ben Nevis, staring down on the Campbell garrison. The Campbells did not know what hit them. Convinced that Montrose was far away to the north, many died believing that it was a skirmish with stragglers. During the rout, Montrose lost only eight men. The Duke of Argyll fled into ignominy down Loch Linnhe.

The route taken in that epic midwinter march is unknown. It started in Glen Tarff, the route of the Corrieyairack road, and ended skirting the Lochaber 4000'ers along the route of the puggle line, where Leanachan Forest is today. In between is a mystery. Most probably they travelled down Glen Roy, over passes either side of the Carn Deargs.

My own long march, a coast to coast walk in 1987 crossed from Loch Oich to Strathspey. Unlike Montrose's men I did not skirt the Carn Deargs, and managed a pretty effortless ascent of the two corbetts. What was not so effortless was the infamous track up Glen Buck. The notorious track above Aberchalder was especially tough with full packs after a supermarket sweep in Fort Augustus. This army marched on its stomach. Fort Augustus was the first stock up of the walk, after a few days fry up in Knoydart. We caught a bus from Brig of Oich, had 15 minutes shopping time before catching a bus back to our route with our booty. A very filling picnic was enjoyed on the banks of the Caledonian Canal, fightimg off some unwelcome attention of a tame ewe after our food.

We left Glen Buck following birk lined burns onto the peaty heights. Frances sat out the summits, while I did a couple of unladen raids on the Corbetts, the first two of a string of four consecutive Carn Deargs on that walk. Passing the higher hill by a high pass with Glas Charn, and then descending into the all too dubh, Allt Dubh. The second Carn Dearg was slightly harder work, and involved a descent into the worst of the hagged ground.

Carn Dearg(South of Glen Turret) 768m 

The long dry spell had made the bogs about passable, but still sticky. The trick was to try and link up the groughs until reaching the dryer ground further up. The clarity of the Knoydart heatwave had passed and the day was hazy. The descent to the headwaters of Glen Roy were very hard going, and the old advice of following the burns closely in peatlands was followed to advantage. Frustrating how you always have to keep wading across to get to the easy side. Once in the glen the bogs were of the good old wet snipe infested grassy types as we passed over the barely perceptible pass to the headwaters of the Spey. No war to fight, just a few pints sunk at the distant Monadhliath Hotel.

 

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18th February 2003.