The glorious Scots Pine woodland of Glen Affric makes a huge contrast to the stark hills of the North-West Highlands and the equally treeless moors of the Dark Peak where I spend most of my time. Much as I love those places it's always a pleasure to start a walk in mature woodland and in parts of the glen this extends high enough to form an almost natural treeline. The Forestry Commission and its frequently-renamed successors have done a great job here, largely avoiding straight lines, minimising clearfelling, varying species and incorporating broad leaved areas. In recent decades this has been supplemented by the efforts of Trees For Life in planting the some of bleaker ground further up the glen. Even recent developments like the new hydro scheme near Affric Lodge are well landscaped and not intrusive. Affric is a showpiece and it demonstrates how things could be done given a bit of thought and care. Most of the Highlands could look like this!
The upper glen
My first visit to the glen was to the much barer upper reaches though, with hardly a tree in sight and snow down to around 300m. Bill McCrae and I had intended to camp but discovered that although the youth hostel was shut for the winter it was left open for people to use. It made a luxurious base for the next three nights, while we did the four Munros on the north side of the glen in poor weather. Lots of snow wading followed, interspersed with being blown around snowy ridges in thick mist. For some strange reason we took a direct line down the south-east face of An Socach, at one point both being stuck in chest deep snow and having to dig ourselves out with axes.
Mullach Fraoch Choire south ridge. Photo Bill McCrae
On our third day the cloud was even lower but it wasn't actually snowing, so we headed up Mullach Fraoch Choire, without much confidence that it would clear. Around 600m we came out of the top of the cloud into a competely otherwordly scene. Only the snowy upper slopes of the peaks projected above the cloud sea, producing a sense of us having strayed into an alternative universe, a time outside time. The pinnacled south ridge of the Mullach felt thoroughly alpine, a tightrope perched high above the clouds. By the time we got to A' Chralaig the cloud was beginning to thin and by mid afternoon it had broken up into sunbathing weather. To our delight the same happened the next two days as well, giving fantastic traverses of the Five Sisters and Four Brothers.
Gordon Stewart outside Alltbeithe YH
A few years later Gordon Stewart and I got snowed up in the hostel by a three day blizzard. When it finally cleared Gordon had run out of time and had to walk out but I had a wonderful day on Sgurr nan Ceathramhnan. The new snow made walking hard work low down but on the ridges it had been hammered into perfect nêvé, with surreal frost swirls etched onto the rock faces. The summit cairn had turned into a sculpted cluster of "frost chickens" (thanks for the phrase Liz), with snowed up peaks spread out in all directions. Even the Cuillin of Skye and Rum were snowy to low levels, and the lee sides of Mam Sodhail and Carn Eighe obviously had huge depths. It was definitely a day for staying on the ridges so I carried on out to the remote Munro of Mullach an Dheireagain (called Creag a' Choire Aird in those days), cutting back through a notch below An Socach. This meant a descent in semi-darkness, but there was so much reflected light off the snow that a torch wasn't needed, and using one would have diluted the experience considerably. It's still one of my best hill days ever.
Sgurr nan Ceathramhnan after the storm
I'd now run out of food so had to walk out the next day too. Deep snow made the 10km to the road a seven hour job. At one point I thought I wasn't going to get to the road in daylight, but thankfully a section of the icy river bed had been scoured clear and I could gain some distance by walking along it. It was still going to be lateish for hitching south though, and a cold night out loomed. However my luck was in. By a ridiculous coincidence that still amazes me a group of friends had been doing a ski ascent of A' Chralaig and were sitting in a minibus at the track end. I got a lift all the way to Edinburgh! The circulation in my feet is pretty poor due to a frostbite incident and it took an hour in Doug Hall's flat before they thawed out. Hot aches had me walking in circles for a while – still the worst ones I've ever had. It would have been a tough night without the lift.
North side of Sgurr nan Ceathramhnan
I was glad to see that the hostel was still around in July 2018, when I came down from a thunderstorm on Ceathramhnan and was treated to a cup of tea and the warden's home made flapjack. The thunderstorm had been extremely local and confined to the north side of the ridge, not a drop had fallen at the hostel. The streams running south were still virtually dry, and even the Sputan Ban on the south side of Mam Sodhail was only a dribble.
A stream that did get the thunderstorm
The Carn Eighe/Mam Sodhail group are the highest hills north of the great glen and even by the easy route up Coire Leachavie they involve a substantial day out (23km, 1100m ascent). Keen Munro baggers need to add 3km and 400m to it if they want to include the outlying Beinn Fhionnlaidh. Few want to make this day any longer so as a result the two best ridges of the range get little traffic. These are either side of Gleann nam Fiadh and make a superb circuit, nearly 30km and 1600m of ascent, but this doesn't lend itself to including Beinn Fhionnlaidh so doesn't suit those trying to do all the Munros in as few outings as possible. It's also a better walk if you don't include the rounded starting Munro of Toll Creagach and of course everyone (other than Hump baggers) ignores the rounded mound of Am Meallan. The best bits are the lovely easy pinnacles on Stob Coire Dhomhnuill, scrambling but only just, and the prominent prow of Sgurr na Lapaich. This latter summit was a separate mountain on Munro's original list but it was rather oddly deleted for the 1921 version, despite being 4km from its parent Munro with 120m of drop. Anyone sticking strictly to the current list is missing out as it's a cracking hill, and easily the most distinctive peak in the glen.
Sgurr na Lapaich
There's an obvious rock spur leading directly up to the summit and a few years ago I had a look at this as a scramble. Sadly it's both quite loose and very mossy, but it would make an excellent winter route. The one bonus from my summer investigation was a very pleasant stream scramble leading up to the scenic Loch Lapaich perched on a shelf below the face.
Toll Creagach Slab, the Mullardoch Sgurr na Lapaich behind
A much better scramble, easily the best in the Affric ranges (though strictly speaking it's on the Glen Cannich side of the watershed) is the Toll Creagach Slab above Fraoch-choire. This is 100m of solid schist, dotted with little mossy 'islands', and gives lovely delicate padding, quite sustained but with the 'islands' for a rest whenever you need it. The approach is a monster though, and descending it with a backpack is the original source of my long term knee problems. A heather tussock gave way under me and trying to stay upright just landed me with a sprained ankle and a twisted knee. The sprain was minor and after a couple of days rest both felt ok, so I was idiotic enough to do the four Mullardoch Munros. Fairly predictably the knee gave way on the rough ground coming off An Socach at the far end, leaving me with 11km of hobbling and crawling to get back to my tent below the dam. Halfway along I found a stick which made a big difference (no trekking poles in those days), but it still took all of the available daylight (which was quite a lot as it was June). I've had on and off knee problems ever since.
Loch Mullardoch - it seemed a very long way along that far shore!
Just south of Toll Creagach is the much smaller hill of Beinn a' Mheadhoin, which as it stands on its own provides the best viewpoint in the glen. It's very accessible and it's quite surprising that it doesn't get more visits, it certainly deserves them. As well as overlooking the loch of the same name it lines up nicely to look both down the wooded lower reaches of the glen and up into the wild corries at the head of Gleann nam Fiadh. The upper slopes are pathless but not rough going, and a couple of hours is ample to go up and down. The view is so good that you may well want to stay up and enjoy it for a while though.
Affric from Beinn a' Mheadhoin
There's another great view from Creag nan Calman on the south side of the main glen, but this gets even fewer visits. A boggy path up the Allt Garbh from near Affric Lodge takes you to a high level estate track coming in from Guisachan, then you have to find your own way up steepish heather to the summit. This is a rocky knobble dropping away steeply on both sides, again sticking out beyond the main ridges so having a real sense of height.
A natural treeline, Creag nan Calman on right
Despite all these excellent hill walks the real highlight of Glen Affric is the glen itself. The walk around Loch Affric is a popular loop, longish by tourist standards but easy. The loch and the thriving pines provide a beautiful foreground to the jutting ridge ends of An Tudair and Sgurr na Lapaich. Closer to the road the tumbling rapids of Dog Falls are deservedly well known, with a real sense of the power of water as it surges its way through narrow slots. Badger Fall a little lower down the glen is good too, but it's a lot harder to get to so is little visited. The lower glen may not have the sense of wildness that the upper reaches have, but it doesn't feel tamed either, a real credit to the thought that has been put into looking after it.
Looking west from above Affric Lodge
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