Carn na Saobhaidhe
1 November 2007
This rather remote Corbett is located at the north end of the
Monadhliath Mountains and can be climbed from Strath Dearn in the east
or from Strath Nairn in the north. I planned to climb it from the
north.
The starting point was Dunmaglass on the B851 Fort Augustus to Nairn
Road just west of a telephone box. There is very limited parking in
the area. I set off along the Estate road and shortly thereafter
spoke with the gamekeeper. He was a pleasant chap and told me that
there were at least a couple of stalking parties out on the hills
shooting hinds and that one party was on my ascent route. He
'supposed' it would be okay to continue so I took that to mean that
access was permitted, well he didn't say otherwise.
My route involved using several of the Estate tracks that would take
me to the final ascent across peat hags to a small summit cairn. From
my previous ascent, when the higher tracks were snow covered, I was
aware that a track, not shown on the map, ran to and probably beyond
the Carn na Saobhaidhe/Carn Mhic Iamhair bealach.
Lower down there were lots of game birds with numbered shooting posts.
On the track up the side of the Allt Uisg an t-Sidhein I came across a
parked Land Rover and a few minutes later I heard five shots and
spotted a few deer running off. I never saw the shooters.
The Estate had obviously constructed numerous tracks and care was
required to ensure I followed the correct ones. A lone wind turbine,
which wasn't working, located on the south summit of Beinn
Dubhcharaidh was passed on its south side but at this time the cloud
started to lower and the rain became a bit more steady.
A couple of deer ran off so the stalkers wouldn't get them, well not
that morning at least. Tracks seem to head off on all directions but
I managed to keep to the correct one which led towards the source of
the Aberchalder Burn. The track required crossing at least a couple of
times but the water was quite high so by keeping to the east bank
rather than crossing the stream the track was soon rejoined.
The low cloud prevented me from seeing where the tracks headed. As
well as feeling remote there was also a feeling of being enclosed on
the higher tracks which had piles of peat at the edges over six feet
high. As I headed along one of these tracks towards the bealach
between Carn na Saobhaidhe and Carn Mhic Iamhair another new track led
off to my left which was towards the summit of Carn na Saobhaidhe.
This track, again with piles of peat at the sides suddenly came out
onto the mossy summit of Carn na Saobhaidhe and tracks led a few
metres to the summit cairn. This was confirmed by using a GPS as the
area was just a vast mass of moss.
There was nothing to see due to the low cloud so I about turned and
returned by my ascent route. I never came across any other stalking
parties but in the afternoon the cloud was well down the hill.
For fit cyclists it would be quite possible to cycle all the way to
the summit cairn.
Time taken - 6.5 hours.
Distance - 26 kilometres.
Height climbed - 770 metres.
There are again no photographs due to the poor weather conditions.
Lindsay
www.caledoniahilltreks.com