Sunday, February 12, 2017
Cnoc Bad a' Choille
To use the stile you have to cross the ditch, clamber up the bank, climb the stile, get down back down the bank, and cross the ditch again. Greger simply opened the gate instead (having noticed that it had no padlock), and we followed a frosty track through the silent plantation - not quite birdless, as we saw two coal tits and a blackbird and heard at least one wren.
However, the landowners had the last laugh as the next gate was firmly padlocked, giving us the choice of retreating or climbing over.
We continued to follow the track, aware that the open hillside we wanted was just beyond the trees - and finally we found a gap which we used to gain a steep, grass-and-heather slope. Just as we reached the end of the plantation, there was a frantic flapping of wings - and then nothing.
It was probably just as well that it was very cold, because much of the bog on the hill had turned to ice; you had to watch your step, but this was preferable to sinking into mud up to your ankles.
Having struggled up the very steep slope and reached the ridge, we just had a walk to the right of a hundred metres or so to stand on the lower top. The hill to the left of Greger has a trig point (Meall an Fhuarain), so it could be a future outing.
There were sweeping views to the west and north, with (from left to right) Cul Mor, Suilven, Canisp, Conival, and Ben More Assynt on the skyline. Against all the "rules" of landscape photography, it was difficult to avoid our own shadows, and anyway, I quite like them. Shows we were there!
It was now a case of turning back again to walk the one and a half kilometres along the broad ridge to gain the higher top - with another inelegant climb, this time over the deer fence itself.
In what was predominantly soft, boggy terrain, it was nice to see a small outcrop of quartz, set off by the frost and the grey-green moss.
After a gentle but long climb we could at last see the trig point on Cnoc Bad a' Choille.
Looking east:
Again, the top plate was intact on this trig point, although the lettering was worn in exactly the same place as the previous one we bagged - at the start of the word "triangulation". Odd. The FB number was S7929.
We walked away from the trig point to look down the hill and across the sweep of country to the south-west - although any pictures in this direction were useless because of the extremely bright sun; and as we stood gazing at Seana Bhraigh and An Teallach, Greger exclaimed "Bird!" A dark shape went hurtling arrow-straight from left to right below us and a good distance away. It wasn't hanging about. It had places to go and people to see, and it covered the boggy moorland at an enviable speed, finally banking round a distant rise of land and so vanishing from our sight. I did ineffectual things with the camera and cursed my clumsiness, so I have no record of what we thought was a black grouse.
As we made our way down from the top to make a round walk of it, a second bird materialised in the sky flying in the same direction as the first one. It was going so fast we could only stand and stare and try to recall afterwards what we'd seen, which was a darkish bird with white on the wings. This seems to confirm black rather than red grouse, but I'm not sure.
An icy wind had been increasing in strength all day, but now we really needed to sit down and have something to eat and drink. We headed down to the strip of grass between the edge of a plantation and a large cleared area - and found a lovely little corner that made us both instantly think "old Caledonian pine forest". It was quite different from the dark, almost lifeless commercial plantings. We sat on the bank in the sun and gratefully sipped hot coffee; and it was only after we'd left the spot that I wondered if "they" would see it too, and preserve it.
We made our way across the muddy track made by the forestry vehicles but found it frozen enough not to be too messy; and so gained the quite substantial road that's been built up the hillside for the timber trucks. The place was deserted now, the machines standing idle - which is why we chose a Sunday for our walk.
The logging road took us down to the main road, and we had a walk back of three or four hundred metres to the car. A nervy bunch of deer in an open area melted into the forest, but looked rather like roe deer. It had, we agreed, been an enjoyable day. The hill is only 340m high, but with the long walk-in and the roughness underfoot, it was a good outing for exercise, the views were wide-ranging, and our first sightings of what might have been black grouse in flight had been the icing on the cake. (Later: I want to follow up these sightings to confirm, although the black grouse hen I snapped in a silver birch last November shows they are to be found in the area.)