Most people associate the name Foinaven with the racehorse that won the Grand National at 100-1 (even if it was spelled differently). Even those who know that the name belongs to a mountain will mostly remember it for the controversy a few years ago as to whether it topped the 3000 foot level or not. The mountain has better claims to fame than these though, as one of the grandest, wildest and roughest hills in the whole of Britain. It’s a huge, complex, sprawling mountain, a complete range in itself, with at least eight summits and half a dozen corries. There are sharp ridges, glistening lochans and a varied array of crags, ten of which have climbs on them. The scrambling is amongst the finest in the country, while the ridge traverse is a classic day out for fit hillwalkers.
Looking to Ben Hope from the ridge, with Cnoc Duail, Ganu Mor Slabs and A' Cheir Ghorm below
The shortest route up Foinaven is from the A838 a few miles north of Rhiconich and there are guidebooks that just describe a route up and back from here. The trouble with this plan is that the moat of bog around the northern flank has to be crossed twice, while the 500 metre pull up to Ceann Garbh, the first summit, is both hard work and the least interesting way up the hill. This is climbing the hill purely for the tick and almost any other way up is better.
If you have two cars or a non-walking driver then the end to end walk along the main ridge is a great day out, taking 8 hours or so. Doing it south to north gives you the benefit of the good path up the Allt Horn to 500m, and once you leave the path the ascent to the first summit, An t-Sail Mhor, is fairly gentle too. Then at the second summit (unnamed on the OS map but sometimes known as Stob Cadha na Beucaich) the mountain shows its teeth. Or at least one tooth, the blocky spike of Lord Reay’s Seat. This looks intimidating, but the ridge up the left hand edge is easy, barely scrambling in fact.
Stob Cadha na Beucaich and Lord Reay's Seat
Beyond this the ridge stays sharp, but there is no sense of exposure, just the eerie creaking of the screes on either side. Ganu Mor, the highest peak, has two cairns, of which the westerly one is the highest, but the eastern one has a better view. An easy ridge leads to the last summit, Ceann Garbh, becoming grassy as the rock changes from shattered quartzite to solid Lewisian gneiss. If descending direct to the road beware of the line of broken cliffs at 400m, easily avoided on the left. A drier and more scenic but slightly longer descent goes over Creag na Claise Carnaich and along the north side of a group of lochans to meet the road just outside Rhiconich. This is quite rough in places but the lochans make great foregrounds for photos.
Foinaven from Loch na Claise Charnaich
Although the traverse is a classic day out it fails in one crucial respect in that it gives no sense of the huge corries on the east side of the ridge which are the mountain’s finest feature. The tiers of Coire Duail and Coire Ghrannda are the wildest of these, and the best short loop on the hill goes up these (still 17km or so). The landrover track up Strath Dionard gives an easy start, getting you well into the wild country. The building of the track aroused a certain amount of adverse comment, but it is far less of a scar than the long thin swamp it replaced. Leave the track after 6km at a small quarry, where a useful deer track leads up to beautifully patterned walking angle slabs. From the top of these contour towards the mouth of the upper corrie, Coire Ghrannda, guarded by a rock tier. This is a wonderful place, one of my favourite spots anywhere. The name means the ugly corrie, and I suppose that if you were trying to graze cattle or sheep there it’s apt. For anyone who loves wild scenery however, the name couldn’t be less fitting. A deep blue-green lochan nestles in a rock bowl, with plates of gneiss slabs on one side and steeper pillars on the other. There is a rough scree exit at the back of the corrie, with some traces of path, while cutting back right allows you to follow the right hand skyline up to Ceann Garbh. This is even steeper but much easier going underfoot than the corrie headwall.
Ganu Mor and Coire Ghrannda
My most memorable trip up the back wall was with a group that included three retired US Marines. We were in Scourie for a week and in the bus on the way there I could overhear lines like “That guy looks a bit old”, “he’s carrying a bit of timber” and even “We’re going to walk those Limeys into the ground”. I knew what was coming! The “old guy” had done two rounds of Munros and one of Corbetts and the guy with the “timber” did a big hill most weekends. All of them were used to the roughness of the North-West, while the marines hadn’t walked off a path since their military days. As expected the latter found the pathless ground tough and it was the scorned “Limeys” who had to wait at times for them to catch up. Actually the three were a really likeable bunch and once it became clear what the real situation was they sent themselves up hilariously. We had A and B groups on that trip and after the first day they decided to take it easy with the B Group. Foinaven was the toughest day though, so Chuck, the oldest, came along, determined to prove to himself that he could still pull the stops out. He managed it, but I’ve rarely seen anyone so knackered. At the top of the long scree slope out of Coire Ghrannda he collapsed in a heap, barely able to speak. The views out over Loch Inchard are extensive, so the rest of us were happy to enjoy them while he recovered.
Loch Inchard from above Coire Ghrannda
To get the best out of these corries you have to use your hands. Three excellent routes can be strung together to give over 200 metres of superb scrambling on perfect gneiss. The bluff of Cnoc Duail projects out into Strath Dionard in overlapping slabs, and though its left hand part is too steep for scrambling the angle eases off further right. The central rib, where the face changes direction, is the best line and the sections run logically together, climaxing in a steeper groove up the right edge. A committing tiptoe leads into an overhung niche with no obvious exit and considerable exposure, but once the step is made good holds appear and the overlap turns out to be easy.
Cnoc Duail, the scramble starts up the left-hand set of slabs and finishes up the boundary of light and shade
From the saddle beyond Cnoc Duail a deer path slants down rightwards below the headwall of Coire Duail (superb ice streaks in winter) and more slabs run up into Coire Ghrannda, easier the further right you go. You arrive just above the lochan and the left hand edge of the corrie gives a simple scramble. If you have your head together though then a better route lies on the Ganu Mor Slabs up and right from the lochan. Start where two rakes cross at the foot of the main slabs and just head up direct. The slabs are less steep than they look from below and the friction is superb. Confidence is essential as there are hardly any real ledges and the scrambling is sustained. Smaller bluffs and a quartzite shoulder take you up to the summit.
John Fleetwood on Ganu Mor Slabs
I’m not really recommending the next bit, but for anyone seeking an adventure there’s always A’ Cheir Ghorm 😁. This quartzite spur sticks eastwards off the main ridge and its narrow crest makes an atmospheric walk. Its north flank is a different animal though, one of the biggest but least visited pieces of bare rock in the country, a kilometre long and 150m high. I strongly suspect that nobody other than me has ever been there more than once, as most of it is horrendously loose, even by the standards of steep quartzite. The size of the screes below it give you a clue!
A' Cheir Ghorm
Back on much more solid rock, if Pilastre (HVS) on Cnoc a’ Mhadaidh was in Glen Coe, Langdale or Llanberis it would be famous, steep slabs and corners providing the only way through a huge roof. Further up Strath Dionard the 300m Creag Urbhard dominates the loch, a crag renowned for people getting lost on it. To give you an idea, the original route up it, by those ubiquitous pioneers Ling and Glover, was probably not on the main crag at all but two buttresses further up the glen! Between those two is the even more impressive First Dionard Buttress, with Millenium (E2) taking an unlikely line up the middle and Cengalo (VS) sneaking in from the right. Further up the glen are several more buttresses, frequently sporting the dreaded dagger symbol, meaning “We’re not sure about this one”. Even the excellent recent guidebooks haven’t resolved all the confusions, so leaving perfect terrain for the exploration-minded, in as wild a setting as you could wish for yet only two hours from the road.
Creag Urbhard Upper Slabs catching the sun
Behind the main section of Creag Urbhard a huge sweep of slabs leads up rightwards. They start easily at first, then steepen to 100 metres of more sustained scrambling. In dry weather this can be padded up on friction, but I once got caught in the middle of it by a thunderstorm, which was a different matter. Quartzite is very slippery in the wet, so I had to escape by doing a convoluted ‘join the dots’ line linking together little square holds, never knowing whether or not they were going to run out. Thankfully they didn’t. Above the slabs easy slopes run up to An t-Sail Mhor and the start of the ridge traverse. To walk in to Creag Urbhard, scramble up the slabs and finish along the ridge is a long day, but for grandeur, drama and sheer ruggedness it takes some beating.
On Ceann Garbh
So why is this paragon amongst mountains not better known? The answer is partly its failure to reach the magic 3000 foot mark, but more importantly its distance from the places where most people live. Right on the far north-west corner of Scotland, only 20km from Cape Wrath, it seems too far to go for many. Even the recent popularity of the North Coast 500 doesn’t seem to have opened the floodgates. There’s easily enough brilliant hillwalking in the area to justify a week’s stay though. Arkle, Ben Stack, Quinag and Cranstackie are all great hills, and all four have at least one good scramble on them. On Foinaven itself you could have two or three superb scrambling days without repeating yourself. On the climbing front, as well as Foinaven’s half dozen good crags there are the Sheigra sea cliffs, two major sea stacks and dozens of single pitch gneiss outcrops. Plus there are the wonderful beaches of Sandwood Bay, Oldshoremore and Balnakeill nearby. Even the weather is better than most people would have you believe. Once you get north of Ullapool the rainfall drops off markedly, especially on the coast. One recent summer I only had ten wet hill days in the area (out of around 150) while much of Britain got drenched. Even the midges weren’t too bad, as many days were windy.
Any more excuses? No? Well, what are you waiting for, get up there and get your boots on (and don’t forget the bucket & spade).
Sandwood Bay
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