A night with voles.

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13°C down to 10°, sunshine and showers

Corryhully bothy is in the Glenfinan estate. After a casual day recovering from the Mamores, I needed somewhere dry to relax. This is ideal, it has facilities that no other bothy has. It’s known as ‘the electric bothy’, for reasons you can guess. The other kind of facility is covered by a spade as usual in these places.​

It’s best to phone the estate manager Alexander before staying. This is not a Mountain Bothies Association (MBA) hut. He then brought firewood that evening.

The Hut is home to families of voles. They are surprisingly big, with brown fur, but with no noticeable tail. They like to gnaw. They doughs on any ammtagmdpwtgat may hold food. So make sure you hang everything from the rafters so they can get to them. Take para cord or straps for your rucksack.
The evening was very nice, I stood outside eating supper watching bats and the shifting light of sunset down the Glen.
My intention is to climb Streap and stay here again before going home.
Alexander is the estate manager and I have seen him a couple of times, more to bring fresh firewood. Excellent. If I get a soaking on the hill, I can dry out in front of the fire.

The wood didn’t last long enough in practice. Maybe bring coal next time.

The Mamores from Kinlochleven.

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12°C, dry white cloud to start, rain after about 3pm.

Walk along The West Highlands Way for a short while before taking a wet turning north. Onto a bealach that connects two of the horseshoe’s summits. The route up the Glen issues soggy but with reasonable grip. Once over the edge, the full force of the wind was felt but it remained dry.
The planned route was part horseshoe and tee-bone it with two Munros. So over the col and diagonally down the other side to trace a contours behind the peak Am Bodach to skip it out. Stob Coire a Chairn (981m) was the one I wanted.

AnGearanach

Before me was a magnificent panorama, the most striking is An Gearanach which looks like a fine scramble for another day. I’d prefer not to do that one solo for safety reasons.

Return was by the same route any then along the ridge to Sgurr an Lubhair. That one is not a munro, even though the height is enough. Munros have to stand 300m above surrounding land, this one doesn’t, quite. Still, for a horseshoe ridge, the top is flatish and requires a decision using the compass to get down. Two sides are drops down dramatic cliffs so you need the right path.
Despite the hill fog, the terrain here was interesting. A very nice Lochan marked my junction. The water is distinctly turquoise with white quartzite stones below. Worth coming back, take note. I chose the descent into the glen south back to the West Highlands Way. A path contours and descends westwards. Reading the contours on the map, there appears to be a chute which turned out to be a very useful route down. It zig-zagged down on what must have been an ancient route. It was too big for a deer trail but overgrown with grasses and lacking any footprints. I think is must have fallen into disuse decades ago.

DSCF5654It was here that I encountered the first midges of the trip. I crouched down at a burn to collect and filter drinking water. I got mobbed by them. Once on the track, I turned east for the long walk back along the West Highland Way. Not having seen anybody all day, a few small groups passed going north here. One group of Germans were setting up camp in a short grass patch on the Glen.

Sgorr Dearg, 1024m

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13°C, brisk SW Bringing showers late afternoon.

Part of the Ballachulish horseshoe. Met a group of guys from around north Manchester getting ready for a walk. I asked where they were going to go. They showed me on a route card, so I said yes to their invite.
I was delighted after a somewhat sluggish start. Those leaden clouds were quite off-putting.
The guys were all retired from work and lifelong fell runners. Their experience bodes well.

We waked up the first half of the Ballachulish horseshoe. The group decision was to turn back before the second Munro because of the risk of failing light and building rain​. Anyway, it was an excellent day out and kick-started my trip after a slow morning’s start.

Rolling out the green carpet.

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14°C, sunny to start.

Turf rolls are best staggered to make the joins less vulnerable.​

This photo was taken at lunchtime, which means rolling out took about two hours, plus a bit.

The final step is to seive fine topsoil along the joints to encourage the rolls to grow into each other. Eventually. The whole lot should form a shingle mat.

Stopping now, I have a stiff back and I’ve run out of chocolate. All done for £126 and I’ve got 4 rolls left over. Do you want them?

How many barrows?

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18°C, sunny with some heavy showersDelivery: this time, the lorry can’t get around the back. All those years ago, I had 6 tons of gravel delivered to cover the mud lawn. When I used to have dogs, they would run mud into the house each winter.​
So how many wheel barrows did it take to move one ton of topsoil to the back garden?

Burst, then fixed with carpet tape.

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I rode Racelite with MapMyRide+! Distance: 41.58km, time: 01:47:52, pace: 2:36min/km, speed: 23.13km/h.

http://mapmyride.com/workout/2420264324

A speedy whizz through the lanes to freshen up. But in the thirteenth mile: bang!
The rear tyre burst. Fibres were sticking out like hair. The hole was about 8mm diagonally across the tyre. I found myself outside a house that looked promising however. Maybe they have some carpet tape.
And so they did, I took 4 pieces to patch the inside of the tyre. Friendly people, thankyou for that.
Outside, in the sunshine g applied the tape. I laid four layers, each one smaller to spread out the tension.
I rode home gingerly, nervous that it would blow again. Basset tape has strong glue but it can creep. It could move enough to allow the inner tube to bubble out.
That’s okay unless it happens somewhere critical like a junction.

Anyway, I got home without event.

Bleaklow and a crash site.

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16°C, some showers, some sun. Mostly grey.

I hiked with MapMyRide+! Distance: 13.53km, time: 03:34:10, pace: 15:50min/km, speed: 3.79km/h.

http://mapmyride.com/workout/2412514553

With Carl and Chris to practice nav. techniques. My GPX track does not include the first 1/3. S). Shame because we practiced timing, pacing (including leap-frogging to find features like ponds and ring-contours. We could place ourselves within 10 meters, and estimated grid references matched OS locate each time. The whole thing was very reassuring, especially for the others because they will do the HML assessment in a few weeks. Good luck, though they may not need it. I haven’t booked my ML(s) assessment yet, I’m not ready, there are too many variables in my life right now.
Oh, and the crash site was very interesting too. It was a B29 bomber that hit the hill in 1948. See more details here. We were all struck by how big it is. Details were noticed too, there are ripples and drips in the aluminium where the metal melted that day. We wandered about looking at various pieces of metal and mentally trying to work out what each piece was. the engines were easy, as were the undercarriage.BleaklowB29
By now, we were all tired, it was getting late and I was hungry. Therefore, we chose the easiest route back to the car.