Trip to Corrur… not train spotting!
Friday evening in Euston station was busy, very busy. There had been some problems with overhead wires and there were a lot of disgruntled people who weren’t impressed with two blokes with rucksacks trying to get to the concourse! So we beat a retreat to a local restaurant and returned later to board our train, which being diesel was not affected by the overhead wire issue.
We had opted for the cheap sleeper option, the reclined seats, and finally having got to sleep we were woken to change trains at Edinburgh (thinking now that we should have paid the extra to get a cabin), we got settled in the new carriage and I slept until we arrived in the Highlands. Upon waking I looked out of the window as the dawn slowly broke, enjoying the views. With our stop coming up next, I spoke to the guard and he told us where to stand to get off – a small luggage door. The train arrived at Corrour, the highest train station in Scotland (and features in the film ‘Trainspotting’). we got off with a few other people, the sky seemed to be clearing and the sun came out as we tried not to skate on the ice on the short walk to the SYHA hostel where we would be staying that evening. On arrival at the hostel the guardian meet us and said we could leave some of our equipment which we were not going to need for our upcoming walk, in the bunk room on our beds.
Having sorted and repacked our rucksacks, we set off for the day. The weather seemed to be deteriorating; the higher mountains slowly disappeared in the cloud as we began up a well made track gaining height steadily until we came to a stream crossing. We did not cross the stream, but instead started up the hill in deep wet snow.
The going was initially tough, but we made good progress and began to find firmer patches of snow as we arrived at the ridge that would lead us up to Carn Dearg. Following the broad ridge was easy, although we were in the cloud and visibility was not great, on nearing the summit we meet two people coming off the top, after a brief hello and we arrived on the top the wind had now increased. We did not linger.
Following the ridge away from the summit with the wind at our backs we again made good progress in the snow and soon arrived at Bealach, with the summit of Sgor Gaibhre somewhere above us, in the now snowy, sleety sky. A quick drink and a little food and we began the slow walk up the slope, which seemed to go on a bit, but we soon arrived. The original plan had been to continue over Sgor Choinnich and then down, but the weather was not improving and we would be getting late back to the hostel by continuing on this path. Having told the hostel warden that we would be back just before, or not long after dark, we decided to descend directly down the the col and contour around the mountain, then down and cross a river further down just above a dam.
The walk down was hard, the snow was soft and there was a lot of wading/ squirming/ swimming to get through it. We eventually arrived at the crossing point, but the water was too deep even with a cable across the last part, it was just to risky. We descended further and had to find a gate or a crossing in the deer fence, and had a longer walk through partially frozen bog to find a crossing. It was now getting dark, but having crossed the fence it was relatively easy to find a track through the woods down to the edge of the loch, and then the track that would take us back to the hostel. After 3.5km on the track the hostel came into view, lit up against the dark wet night. On entering it was very warm with nearly a full house, after a quick change of clothing and some food we got chatting to the two people that we had seen earlier, they had intended to complete a similar route to ours, but bailed due to the weather. We chatted for a few hours, discussing what we were planning to do the following day and then went to bed, hoping for better weather in the morning.