In May of this year I attempted to hike the Cape Wrath trail in Scotland. This “trail” runs for some 200 miles from Fort William to Cape Wrath at the extreme Northwest end of Scotland. It is entirely unsigned and combines walking off-trail and 4 x 4 road walking. I had chosen the month of May for this trek as this is advertised as the month where the weather is stable (by Scottish standards that is) and the midges, extremely bothersome tiny flying insects are not yet out in force.
I had to fly into Edinburgh instead of Glasgow, which would have been closer to Fort William, because of flight cancellations as a consequence of the Iran war. A three hour bus ride got me to Ft. William in early evening. I had booked a hotel fairly early in the year and good thing I had! The UK in general and Scotland in May in particular is quite pricey. After mailing a food parcel, purchasing some alcohol stove fuel and some last minute food items I took the midday ferry across Loch Line and started walking on the shore of the Loch. It’s a narrow asphalted one-lane road with very moderate traffic.
At Cona Glen on Inverscaddle Bay you turn inland and soon walk on a 4x4 gravel road. From here on one is walking on the property of a private estate. In Scotland there is a “right to roam” and one can walk on private property as long as one does not interfere with operations. For the most part these estates are in the deer stalking business, meaning they manage herds of deer for the benefit of rich dudes wanting to hunt a trophy buck. I camped at a locked bothy (Corrlarach), close to a running creek with good water and on flat ground, the latter a luxury not to be underestimated.
Next morning I continued on the road which gently swerves left and right, up and down. Eventually the track climbs out on a abandoned 4x 4 road on the right side of the valley, crosses over a pass and then descends to the bottom of the valley. I walked along the “Road to the Isles” in direction of Glenfinnan. This was a mistake. The shoulder is narrow and they drive on the wrong side of the road in Scotland ( ;) ) and the cars pass by you way too close and way too fast. I did not see them coming because they drive on the wrong side of the road and I had a hard time coming to terms with that.
Glenfinnan is just a zoo because the viaduct of the old Scottish rail line appeared in the movie made of the Harry Potter books. I guess people expect to see this train and make this small hamlet a destination on their travel through Scotland. I found myself a quiet little spot for lunch and then got the hell out of Dodge. In the back of the valley I called it a day at Corryhully bothy, which was open. Good thing too as in late afternoon it started pouring not just cats and dogs but entire zoological and botanical gardens. Over the course of the afternoon and evening several other hikers showed up, all of them coming from the North and looking forward to getting done with the trek. I chatted with two older Scottish hikers one of whom is a wildlife biologist working on one of the estates which was rather interesting. While the interior of this bothy is rather primitive it has electrical power (!).
Next morning I climbed up to Beach Allt n’ Chaoruinn and then descended on the other side, first on the left bank of the creek and then crossed over to the right bank, probably a bit too early. It’s boggy in places, but there is an abandoned road running through the valley that makes walking a bit less bothersome. Eventually you get pushed closer to the creek in the valley bottom and it gets really boggy. You then turn left, cross a bridge over the river Pean, enter a forest and reach a fancy gravel road that winds through the forest. As you exit the forest down to your right is A’ Chùll bothy where I spent the night.
Late afternoon at A' Chùll bothy with weather incoming
The valley near A' Chùll bothy
I got up early and was walking at 6 AM as this was going to be a long day. I also wanted to get around the head by Sourlies bothy at low tide and therefore needed to be there by about 10:00 AM. First you head West in open country and then enter the forest again on a rather rough road. You leave the forest and come out in open country which soon becomes rather rocky. There is a bit of a use trail, cross Bealach Clagain Dub and then you enter a gorge, cross the creek and end up on a steep hillside with a view of Loch Nevis. A decent trail appears that leads you down to sea level and in relatively short order you reach Sourlies bothy. I checked it out, nobody there and then proceeded to round the head to Carnoch. I walked along the shore in hope of collecting some mussels for dinner, but no luck. There were plenty of mussel half shells, but without mussel meat.
A view of Loch Nevis from past the gorge
The ruins of the old sheep station at Carnoch
Past the head you walk inland through a bog. The description in the guide is rather dramatic, but I found the walking really straightforward. You can see the bridge in the distance that you need to cross the river, so no orienteering challenge at all. This bridge is right next to Carnoch, the ruins of an ancient sheep station. I had lunch by the bridge as the sun was shining, for once for more than 10 min, and then continued on along a road into the back of the valley. The road peters out eventually and after that point you have, at best, a use trail to follow. This trail is often identical with a drainage, so expect to walk in mud and standing water or, alternatively, try to find better walking off the use trail.
At some point I needed to cross a drainage ditch and I decided to this by jumping over it. It was a bit far, so I was going to use my hiking poles to give myself some leverage mid-jump. I saw what appeared to be a rock below the water surface and proceeded. Alas, whatever I saw was not a rock and both my poles sunk deep into the water and I did not reach the far bank on my jump. Instead I ended up with my right leg in the drainage and continued with my momentum in direction of the other side. My right hiking pole snapped just below the handle and my upper body started to turn right side down while my knee continued to point straight ahead resulting in a torque force on the knee. It hurt like the bloody dickens! I cleaned myself up and continued hobbling towards the day’s goal in the vain hope that the knee would stop hurting in due course. It had no such intention!
At some point you have to climb out on the left to get around a gorge that you can’t pass at creek level. You then descend back to creek level and after another mile or so you have to climb out on the left again, this time leaving the valley for good. It’s steep and off trail, although there are certainly indications that others have gone there before, unsurprisingly. After a climb of several hundred feet you reach a 4x4 road which in somewhat circuitous fashion gets you to the pass Mam Unndalain. You then descend on the same 4x4 road/trail to the valley floor and after some level walking on dirt roads you reach Barisdale bothy. This bothy is located directly in the estate office and there are some luxuries like power, bunk beds, a kitchen. You can use these facilities for a nominal fee of 5 pounds payable in the estate office.
Loch Hourn from descent to Barisdale Estate bothy
As I was paying my fee next morning I noticed some hiking poles leaning in a corner of the office and inspection revealed that they were damaged in one way or another. I asked and was allowed to take one of these. This was important since my tent is supported by two tracking poles and with one of mine being broken, how I was going to be supporting my tent had been a primary concern. Scotland is not like Utah where you can sleep under the stars for weeks on end.
This day’s journey was going to be relatively short, just to Kinloch Hourn where I intended to take a day off to give my knee an opportunity to straighten itself out. At Kinloch Hourn there is also a cafe, so the thinking was that I could take day off and get my food from said cafe. The path to Kinloch Hourn from is pretty good, has some ups and downs but the footing is excellent and although limping I made good progress. I had lunch at the cafe and found out that they were going to close for the weekend since the road to Kinloch Hourn was under repair and only open on the weekend for the residents to leave. So much for eating at the cafe during my day off! I did take off anyway since I figured that I could probably buy something edible in Morvich, the next stop on the hike, to replenish my hiking food that I would be consuming on my day off. I had packed eight days’ worth of food and that was heavy enough that I did not include food for a ninth day in case that I might be delayed.
My day off was mostly spent napping and giving my knee as much rest as possible. Late in the afternoon I was joined by several other hikers, a young French couple, a young Spanish woman and a young Swiss hiker. We cooked together and compared noted on where we’d been as one does among long-distance hikers.
Next morning I hit the track a 6 AM since it was going to be a long day, much of it off trail, and I expected my knee to become really bothersome after a few hours at the latest. From Kinloch Hourn one climbs out on an incredibly steep road to the ridge on the right when looking at the Loch Beag. At the top there is a long contour on old roads and then one heads up to Bealach Coire Mhalbgain. That valley is very boggy but one can wind one’s way through there without too much trouble. At the top the instructions in the guide were not very clear, so I explored the incorrect option first. However, nothing I saw conformed to the description of what I was supposed to see. The deal is that at the top of the pass you climb to the left following the metal fence posts and then you see an old wall made by piling up rocks, presumably in order to prevent sheep to go over the pass into the valley that you just climbed out of. Once you are near the wall you see a rough path that contours the hillside parallel to the wall. The path then descends to a ridge from which you can descend into a valley on the left. This descent is off trail and steep, but without issue. In the valley bottom you eventually end up on one of these “trails” that are identical with a drainage, meaning that you walk through standing or flowing water most of the time. At the very bottom you cross a stream to reach a dirt road which will take you all the way to Shiel Bridge and the A87. What follows is a road walk to Morvich where you can camp at a campsite catering mostly to camper vans, but they have a few spots for tent campers as well. Along the way you pass the Pintail Crafts store that’s mentioned in the guide where you can stock up on some supplies, one of the few opportunities to do so between Ft. William and Lochcarron.
From Morvich one has two options, a walk past the Falls of Glomach or a road walk that gets around the falls. The guide describes the walk past the falls as slippery and as having difficult footing. I decided that with my knee issues I did not need to risk walking a track that has known issues with footing and therefore opted for the road walk. After a stretch walking through meadows you enter a tree plantation and climb fairly steeply to a rough 4 x 4 road that takes you to a ridge from which you have a view into a wide valley with the riverE lchaig and a road running through it. You descend on rough single track, not always obvious, then hike parallel to the creek until you find a spot where you are comfortable to cross the creek and then hit the road.
After a while I caught up to the French couple who had taken the path past the falls of Glomach and their description confirmed that I had made the right decision. We hiked on together past the Iron Lodge and then climbed out of the valley on the left on a steep 4x4 road to a saddle. On the other side the road was much less obvious and the terrain was rather boggy to boot. One is likely to loose the road after crossing a boggy section, but sooner or later it will become evident again. After a long drawn out descent one veers right and then all of a sudden the white Maol Buidhe bothy appears, almost like a Fata Morgana, half a mile ahead. This is a very nice place with a kitchen, bunk beds. There were two people already there when we arrived and more dropped in as the day drew to a close. Some time in the middle of the night an ultrarunner couple arrived and at that point the bothy was filled to capacity, all bunks were taken and people sleeping on the floor.
Next day was a foggy day with a light drizzle. My knee was not very happy about the previous day’s long walk and I therefore decided to make this a short day, just going to bothy to get a bit of a rest. My French friends were going to push on to Strathcarron, but that seemed like a second long day that I was not up for.
We crossed the creek and climbed up the other side through a bog to reach Loch Calavie from where a road led all the way to Bendronaig Lodge bothy. This one was not quite as well appointed as had been, but it had a stove, fire wood so it served me well and I had it to myself all day and night.
Bendronaig Lodge bothy
Next day I followed the road to a bridge across Ulsge Dhubh and then left the road to hit an off-trail section in order to cross Bealach Allan Ruairidh. As I climbed x-country I stayed within viewing distance of an old fence using it as a hand rail and reached the saddle without issue. At the top a path appeared that I could follow all the way to Achintee. I took the road to Strathcarron, had lunch at the pub near the railway station (Cullen Sink (= smoked haddock in cream sauce) Yum !) and then walked the road to Lochcarron. That was bit unpleasant as it was raining, there is little if any shoulder and the cars passing you by will spray you with water. I collected my food parcel from the SPAR market that also acts as a post office, headed for the campground above town and spent the night there.
The "trail" (= drainage)
Momentary incursions of sunlight on an otherwise drizzly day
Since my knee, not entirely surprisingly, had not improved over the five days after my fall and considering that I had plans to go to Peru in the Fall, I decided to end my hike in Strathcarron. This town is on a rail line and one of the locations along the Cape Wrath trail where one can bail easily.
What I have learned:
Nobody goes to Scotland for the weather they say, and they are entirely correct. One needs to be prepared for walking for extended periods in rain or drizzle accompanied by fairly strong winds. You should leave your down jacket at home and bring a fleece instead.
Have a waterproof case for your phone if you use that for orienteering so that the screen remains sensitive to touch even when your fingers are wet.
I carried a 1-person tent and wished to have had a 1+ or 2-person tent so that it is easier to keep your wet hiking clothes away from the stuff that you want to keep dry. I would not go out and buy one for just this trip. However, if you have a choice, I’d bring a larger tent, extra weight be damned.
Don’t count on being able to dry stuff out. The longest sunny period I had during the eight days I walked was about an hour. When everything is saturated with water that is just not long enough to effect any significant drying out.
Make sure that you carry and use some kind of foot balm as well as sleeping socks to take care of your feet at night. Your feet will likely be wet constantly during the day and be macerated at day’s end. For details see https://thetrek.co/andrew-skurka-on-6-tips-for-dry-healthy-feet/ and https://andrewskurka.com/gear-list-backpacking-hiking-foot-care-kit-blisters-maceration/
I was lucky to have been able to stay in bothy most nights in this early part of the trek. You cannot and should not count on being able to do so every night. The Scottish guys I met at bothy said that two nights earlier at Sourlies bothy there had been 30 people there that evening. Not everybody even got to use the kitchen, let alone the bunks. You need to be prepared to camp in rain with strong wind and you can count yourself lucky if the ground is flattish.
There are two supermarkets in Ft. William, a Lidl and a Morissons. Between them they have you covered. There is no other resupply option between Ft. William and Lochcarron except for the small store near Morvich, where you can buy cookies and some pastries. After Lochcarron the next resupply point is Ullapool (big supermarket) which you can reach by bus from Inverlael. Do not count on hiking from Inverlael to Ullapool. That road is dangerous ( no shoulder, high speed traffic, short lines of sight).
Cape Wrath range: Cape Wrath itself is inside a military firing range with live ammunition. The UK government website makes it appear that the range is active 24 hrs during the week and that you may cross only during the weekend. Activity on the range is indicated by red flags and red lights at night. However, apparently they can't be bothered to take down the flags even when the range is not active. More accurate information on the status of the range can be obtained via a facebook page (Cape Wrath Trail Guide Group). Pay attention to posts by Philip Curtis. He works for the range and is in charge of putting the flags up or down (or not), but he knows when the range is actually in use regardless of what the flags suggest.
