Christine's walking & birds blog

Am Faochagach

This Munro is one of the rolling, grassy hills to the north Loch Glascarnoch and is 954m high. Starting from 260m above sea level helps, but there is a boggyish moorland plod to begin with and then a wade across the Abhainn a' Gharbhrain, a fairly substantial river.



I crossed successfully behind Greger and clambered up onto the bank. I heard a soft thud and looked round, but could see nothing on the grass and thought I must have knocked a clod of earth down. Later I realised that my camera was missing and we had to backtrack; Greger eventually spotted it lying in the water. It was, of course, dead. Because of this mishap, most of the photos on the post are taken by Greger with his own camera - which, luckily, he'd decided to bring along.

A cuckoo had been calling as we left the car, and I thought I heard a distant greenshank. Several meadow pipits and a wheatear were seen higher up, the wheatear displaying and singing. We emerged onto the long, plateau-like ridge and turned towards our top in a strong cross-wind. As we approached the col, a smallish bird was seen above us, looking pure white with a black patch underneath - it flew slowly on stiff wings and then dropped out of sight. Looking at photos on the internet (not that there are many), we're fairly sure it was a displaying dunlin.


Looking west-south-west we could see Loch a' Bhraoin and, rising from it, the brown, featureless shape of Creag Rainich (walked in May 2016) with the more dramatic but remote mountains of the Fisherfield Forest rising beyond.

Navigating on the wide ridges of our present hill could be tricky if the clouds closed in; to the left is the spur of Meall Gorm, while to the right is the ridge we used for ascent and descent. On the skyline to the south-east is the whaleback of Ben Wyvis - with, to the right, the three bumps of its smaller neighbour Little Wyvis.







We descended quickly. Sheltered from the wind, we grew hotter and hotter - but it wasn't until we paused for a rest and a drink that we finally stripped off a layer - we couldn't be bothered to stop before.


A green hairstreak butterfly landed on the inner rim of my baseball cap while it lay on the ground; no doubt it was getting some salt from my sweat.


We retrieved our wet trainers and made our way down to the river-bank. This time, I couldn't follow Greger; my feet kept slipping on slimy rocks and ending up in narrow clefts. I got out again and walked upstream until I saw something like a little cairn. Was that a deliberate marker? Yes, it looked doable. I was able to get across on dry boulders for most of the way, with just a short wade in the middle. A great day despite my silly avoidable accident with the camera.