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| Magoo's Bothy |
Over a lovely breakfast at the Ceilidh Place, we decided on a plan of campaign. A trip to Tesco to get some supplies and then we'd drive to Oykel Bridge and drive the 7 miles into Corriemulzie Lodge - on an estate road that has a mixed reputation. From there we'd shoulder overnight packs and walk into Coiremor bothy which is an excellent jumping off point for the ascent of Seana Bhraigh, which is one of the most remote of the Munro's. I drove the track - incredibly slowly it must be said - and we parked up in the rain. The rain stopped pretty quickly which was good, and we had a bit of a chat with two lads who were biking out having climbed the peak in one day (we had seen their car at the Oykel Bridge Hotel), before heading on towards the bothy. The walk in was about 5 miles in my guess and we got to the bothy to find there were in fact 2 - next door to each other as well. Magoo's bothy - the new one - was the one we elected to stay in. It was built by some RAF people in memory of one of their friends killed in Kosovo. It was lovely, with candles, benches, a table and some cutlery etc. It's not maintained by the MBA (who do look after Coiremor), but maintained by friends and family of the guy killed (whose call-sign was Magoo hence the name.) Supper was two rounds of minestrone soup and noodles, as well as some shortbread. Bed was a lovely lie out in the bedroom with some candles. It got a little cold for me - revenge for Claire's for winter as her summer sleeping bag is better than mine :-) The feeling of peace and solitude at Magoo's is tangible - and a reminder of what bothying is like. It has been a few too many years since I was last in a bothy - must go back soon and do some more overnighters...
Waking up to a lovely morning we found we had a slight challenge - the milk had gone off. So, we had two choices; either water on our cereal or Tabasco Sauce. Claire; despite being a daughter of Howard (a man SO hard he has Tabasco Sauce on his toast!) elected for water - so water it was. Actually it was quite nice and a good fuelling session as what was clearly a steep ascent waited for us.
Having tidied the bothy we packed our kit and retraced our steps to the head of the loch. Fording the outflow, which can be quite an epic, was easy given the recent hot spell and was simply a quick boulder hop. We then pulled up into the corrie before slanting left with a steep ascent onto the ridge. From the ridge, we pulled onto point 760m where a widening vista revealed itself. Most of the pix can be found here: https://picasaweb.google.com/102361192587557786751/SeanaBhraighViaMagooSBothy
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| Looking to An Tellach. |
the one's below are two of the examples from the rest of the day.
We were both amazed to find someone on top - who had come up from Inverlael in about 2 3/4 hrs. The line of ascent towards the rest of the Beinn Dearg range was clear - with the clouds lifting and swirling around. After a second breakfast on top we set off on the descent - taking a nice ridge down towards pt 592m; from where we planned to descend to join one of the network of stalkers paths that serve this area. Our walk-in had actually started on this main track - it is easily ridable although the section we walked back on was not totally flat!
Having had some food at the top of point 592 we descended towards the path and were soon on it. The return leg seemed quite long in the heat - although the fantastic views all around more than made up for this. This is a really empty quarter of Scotland, even by the standards of the NW Highlands, and the peace and quiet was lovely.
Re-joining the main track we had been on the night before as it wended it's way along the Strath there were several tempting pools to bathe in. However, I suspect that my ankle would have tightened up had we stopped, and we still had the drive-out to do; so with regret we passed on. Claire, by the way, did the drive out to the road and was a little! more confident and quick than I was ....oh well
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| Lovely sculpture on the drive out.. |
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