TGOC25 Day 9 - to Loch Charles

Friday 16 May

Distance and ascent: 32.6km, 775m

Weather: wall-to-wall sunshine, again

Breakfast was included in my room rate at the Schiehallion Hotel and service started at 0730, so that's when I presented myself in the bar, which doubles as a breakfast room.

The full Scottish, minus bacon and sausage (but with haggis and black pudding) went down nicely, then with just a quick nip across the road to the Coop for some cheese* I was ready to go (* I also impulsively bought a 1.5 litre bottle of pop, because that is what I'm enjoying on these hot days. I decanted half a litre into yesterday's empty pop bottle and most of the rest went down the sink - a waste but a big bottle was significantly cheaper than a little bottle.)

There isn't much to say about the first 15k of the day. Pavement, disused railway and road took me not-unpleasantly (river views, plenty of shade) but unspectacularly to Balnamuir, where I failed to take a side-on view of the bridge I crossed there. It's has a plank surface, just like one I remember over the river Mawddach from my childhood, and a couple of vehicles went over it whilst I was on it, giving a full demo of how much those planks rattle. 

Not long afterwards I crossed the A9 which somehow felt like it was the halfway point, even though I was 8.5 days down, with 3 to go. 

The Nae Limits cafe, adjacent to the A9, wasn't directly on my route but was so close that I decided it was worth the detour. The pot of tea was good and plentiful. The cake was dried out. 

The best bit of that cafe stop was the border collie who picked a twig off the floor, came and put it on the edge of my chair and then stared at me expectantly. When I did nothing it picked it back up and put it on my lap, again staring expectantly. I gave in to it. Unfortunately the twig wasn't up to the job and fell apart after one fetch. 

I didn't get much further up the road before I got slightly waylaid at the Petrol station shop (they have a diner attached - should have gone there instead of the Nae Limits cafe, but I'd forgotten about its existence) feeling like another bottle of cold pop* would assist my next climb. The cheapest option was a can of Tizer and whilst I recognised the name I couldn't remember what sort of drink that was. The can was decanted into my pop bottle and the verdict was that it's an inoffensive drink. (*I'm not a pop drinker. I reckon I've had more sweet fizzy drinks in the last week than I've had in the last 5 years combined.)

I now had a climb of around 500m ahead of me, but being over the course of 11km, it wasn't taxing. Along the way I caught up with another Challenger, Kenneth and walked with for a while until he stopped for a break at the next loch. I consulted the map and forged on. 

At this point I could have continued 2.2km along tracks to take two sides of a triangle, but my plotted route was to cut 700m across the short edge of the triangle. It's the sort of thing I wouldn't usually think anything of, but maybe the words from my route vetter about the hill I was now approaching should have caused a rethink:

"Creag nam Mial, I fear, is a stinker, the sort of hill which give Marilyns a bad reputation, especially when approached from the west. The heather hasn’t been subject to muirburn for many years and is deep, tangled and very energy sapping to negotiate. The lower ground by the burns is no kinder, marshy and very rough indeed. So, allow yourself plenty of time for the assault and expect a very slow rate of travel. It’s marginally better to the east but I guarantee that you’ll emerge on the track by Loch Charles with immense relief."

I emerged onto the track at the end of that first 700m stretch right in front of some locals who know the area well, who were bemused that I had opted to cut across. They were no doubt more bemused when I told them I still had 1.8km of the same to reach my summit. 

I then had a bit of a rethink. If I followed the track for a while (itself in places muddy and soft in spite of the prolonged dry spell), I could reduce the yomp through heather to 1.4km. The benefit of that (although I didn't realise until I got there) was that it took me past the Bothy where my route Vetter had wisely suggested I spend the night (wise because there's not much campable land in this area). It being exactly second lunch time, I called into the bothy, making use of a comfy chair indoors, out of the sun. The bothy had a living room, two bedrooms with two beds apiece and a decent sized area of cropped grass outside, perfect to pitch a tent. I questioned my decision to continue on over my hill today (it had been on tomorrow's itinerary), but I preferred to get it done rather than having a task of unknown difficulty ahead of me the following morning.

I have now visited the summit of 554 Marilyns, and this one went straight into my top five 'memorable due to ground conditions'. I couldn't even comfort myself with "well it's not the *very* worst heather and tussocks I've ever walked through". Thank goodness conditions are so dry just now, so the bog wasn't too wet. 

Having reached the top of a heather clad hill, the going the usually gets remarkably easier as yomping down hill through heather is so much easier than going up. The problem here is that in the 3.5km (plus wiggles) that lay between me and my new night-stop, there was a lot of flat and even some uphill to get across before the downhill started. 

I shall suffice to say that I was very glad indeed when Loch Charles came into view, although it still seemed to take me an age to reach it. 

If pushed, I could have found an "it'll do" sort of a pitch by the loch's inflow, but after filling up my bottles from that paltry burn (definitely not the mountain water of dreams, and it was a long process scooping it up a third of a cup at a time to fill my bottles) I thought I'd go and see if there was anything better over by the outflow. 

Not having far to go, I just shoved my full bottles at the top of my pack. That made my pack rather top heavy, which wouldn't have been a problem if I hadn't tripped. But I did trip and all that weight so high up didn't half fling me forward. Fortunately a grazed elbow was all I incurred as I thudded to the ground.

I think you'll agree, from the photo at the top of this post, that it wasn't a bad pitch at all. 

Sad times though: Creag nam Mial was the final hill on my route sheet. I've been loving the hills (even a ridiculously hard one like this had its merits) in this glorious weather, but all good things must come to an end, and it was now downhill all the way to the coast - surely?

Tent photos - loaded out of order by Blogger. Bottom was last night. Top this morning.