On the backs of dinosaurs
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A DINOSAUR attracted us to this peak, the final Munro on a long ridge leading from the edge of Knoydart to here above the head of Loch Quoich. This huge mass of water was established when Scotland’s largest rockfill dam was built in 1962, creating a new high water mark which is surrounded by huge mountains, many of them difficult to access over some rough terrain.
It has also created a distinctive feature of the landscape that had escaped my own eyes despite having a map of this area on my living room wall.
It was my daughter, Clara, who pointed it out. As I was staring at the map, dreaming up various possible routes for hill walks and mountain bike trips in this wild area of the Highlands, she said: “Oh, a dinosaur,” and wandered off. Then it was like a game of Where’s Wally... hunt the mystery dinosaur.
Eventually I found it – upside down and light blue in colour. Loch Quoich itself, if you turn the map upside down, is a classic dinosaur shape, with its head at the dam, an island for an eye, a long tail stretching down to Ben Aden and two legs jutting northwards from its underbelly.
Having found the creature, I now wanted to get high above it and see if you could see it for real – without the aid of a light aircraft, that is. So began our plan to climb Gairich, a relatively easily accessible Munro for this vast landscape but, as we discovered, no simple bagging outing.
Paths on much of this route are so bad as to be almost worthless, spreading wider with walkers like us constantly trying to find a feasible route through the horrendously boggy conditions.
There’s a small parking area just west of the dam on the Kinlochhourn road. Our walk began by crossing the 320-metre-long dam and picking up the path on the south side of it, which soon divides through the sodden earth. We picked our way along as best we could to reach Lochan an Fhigheadair from where the path improves – slightly – to climb over a shoulder and drop down towards the plantation forest ahead.
Go through a gate to follow an old forest track for around 80 yards then turn right to pick up a stalkers’ path that zigzags its way up onto the ridge of Druim na Geid Salaich. At last a path that made for easy going, albeit uphill, onto this long wide ridge that was somehow reminiscent of a dinosaur’s back itself.
Lonely Glen Kingie lay below us to the south and to the north we could make out the “head” of our T-rex through the cloud. The summit of Gairich was well hidden in the cloud and we now held little hope of getting a good view of dino from there, although the top of this 919m Munro is said to offer good views of the Knoydart and Glen Dessary peaks – on a better day, perhaps.
Patchy snow still lay on the ground as we crossed the large plateau of Bac nam Foid. We paused for a break near the bottom of the steeper section of the ridge and there swapped our walking poles for ice-axes; the way ahead looked potentially tricky and we wanted to be ready.
The path zigzags left of the main ridge at first before cutting back to gain the edge. There was one snowfield that stopped both Peter and me in our tracks, as we were unconvinced about the stability of the thawing snow above a long, steep drop. We continued upwards until we found a surer footing and set off across the white stuff, finding the path again on the far side.
We were up in the cloud now but the ridge was easy to follow, though tricky to negotiate as it switched between rocky stretches and snow-covered areas, so we decided to put our crampons on for added security. This was not perfect snow for them but it definitely made the going easier as we got higher, with one tiny section of very easy scrambling presenting little trouble even in these conditions.
Soon we were crossing a final snowfield as the summit cairn came into view through the cloud. There was to be no perfectly timed clearance but we were glad to have reached the top regardless of the fact we wouldn’t get to see our dinosaur.
After another sandwich we retraced our steps on this out-and-back route, and the cloud did begin to clear below us, at least. As we reached the dam, we headed to the water’s edge to rinse our boots and “pat the dinosaur on the nose”. This giant reservoir may not be quite as ancient as that but Loch Quoich will forever be known as the “dinosaur loch” in my household.
