Holiday Hike

For our annual holiday we were staying at a cottage at the bottom of the track for Maol Chean-dearg, but weather predicted to be poor all week, but with a small break on the Sunday we decided to have a go. Today my niece Toni was tagging along with myself and Ailidh.

Heading out the cottage and down the road we picked up the start of the walk through some gates beside a few cars of some earlier starts on the walk. After a short distance along the track a path heads down west and shortly rejoins the track, a short diversion around a dwelling. Following the track for just under half a kilometer until a path heads off to the right avoiding the hydro works.

Keeping to the small trail we eventually arrived at a wooden footbridge over the Fionn-abhainin river. Less than a kilometer later we arrived at the Coire Fionnaraich bothy where we had our first proper break, taking on some fuel and giving us a rest from the midges that although light today, made themselves known whenever we stopped!

From this point the path continued up the glen, at times becoming quite wet and muddy. A kilometer later we took the path to the left, heading steeply up switch backs eastwards, once up the steepest part there were great views of our target Munro, although occasionally the top in clagg. The ascent eases off for a kilometer or so, but path remained quite boggy at times.

Once the ascent started in earnest again, we left the mud behind as the path became quite rocky and progress felt much easier. Once at the a'Choire Garbh bealach, there were great views of the impressive Corbett An Ruadh-stac, which in hindsight I wished I had decided to tackle today as well!

The path now headed up to the north very steeply over loose scree, but once up we were on the rocky plateau over towards the base of the final push, but just before hand there was a little gully to negotiate but easily done. Here the last push was quite steep over boulders and at times the path seemed to split and rejoin many times, I think we all used a different route up.

Once over the boulder field, it was a short walk over some stony ground to the summit of the Munro Maol Chean-dearg. Views at the top were pretty good considering the claggy weather today, however it was a bit breezy and chilly, but we used the shelter cairn to have a late lunch.

We returned the same way, however the scree decent was pretty tricky. Again we had a stop at the bothy for a break before heading back to the cottage, thankfully today no long drive home!