Last night it continued to rain heavily and this morning many things were damp from yesterday, either directly or because of water brought into the tent on waterproofs or as I went in and out, brushing against the wet nylon of the flysheet. My most depressing moment was finding that my camera had become wet and no longer worked. Although in a dry bag, the dry bag had let water in, I should have checked last night when maybe I could have saved the situation. This morning there were still intermittent showers.
The "highlight" of today were the Falls of Glomach, a little way beyond my campsite. There was indeed a large amount of water dropping a long way down into a narrow gorge. Although small by, for example, Icelandic standards, it was impressive for Scotland. Perhaps more impressive was the difficulty reaching it. I had spent hours approaching it yesterday from above through a pathless morass of wet vegetation and peat banks.
Leaving the falls after taking a photo on my phone, I followed the route normally used to visit them, a narrow path indented into the steep slope above the gorge. The "path" included wet, mossy outcrops that I had to climb over, with the hazard of a fall down a steep slope if I slipped. I took them with great care, being sure of hand and foot holes, like a crab rather than a mountain goat, my bad knee hindering my movements. Halfway down I was surprised to see someone climbing up, so early and in such a remote spot on a path which the evidence suggested was little used. He said he was climbing a few Munros. Whereas he moved easily my legs felt stiff, tired and clumsy.
When I finally reached the bottom, my GPS told me I had achieved 1.7 kilometres per hour since I started this morning. Normally I walk at 4 kilometres per hour. On my trip yesterday through the pathless, boggy morass I managed only 2.5 kilometres per hour, using a lot of effort and energy climbing in, out and around peaty channels. Fortunately, the path improved at the bottom of the gorge, there were footbridges followed by a good track along the base of the glen, by a loch and some isolated houses. A reasonable track took me over the next pass and down to a bothy, a place where backpackers can stay in a very basic building. The small, white bothy stood alone below the grand sweep of the surrounding, treeless mountains.
For my next challenge, there was a river crossing. A worry had been gnawing away within me that the heavy rain last night and the previous night might have made the crossing hazardous. It is not so much the depth of water that is dangerous but the force the current exerts upon you, trying to push you over. I took off my trousers, socks and boots and put on my lightweight "hotel" shoes for wading across the river. My boots and socks were damp but I knew from past experience that they could get much wetter if I had waded through the river in them and would take much longer to dry. I then successfully completed my river crossing on a bank of stones lying under the brown foamy water. I wondered if the stony submerged causeway had been deliberately put there for this purpose.
In walking down to the bothy I was struck by how quiet it was. Few birds seemed to be around, the only noise was the tinkling of water, trickling or splashing down hill. A warning maybe of some trench, hidden by vegetation, through which the water is draining. After the river crossing a pathless, slow climb took me over a ridge where I was glad to join a vehicle track which took me down into another glen, beside another loch. The track led to another bothy and a small lodge, but I turned north on another track. This turned into a path, which then faded away into mud, rocks, grass and streams. I climbed towards the Bealach Bhearnais pass moving this way and that to avoid small, but deep valleys from the streams coming down the hillside, wet areas and other obstacles on this pathless route. As it past 6:00 pm, very tired, I decided to stop and pitch my tent. The site was slightly sloping and damp but the best available. I ate my tea sitting on a rock while the tent was drying out from the previous nights rain, glad of the breeze helping to keep the insects in check, more large horse flies than midges today. The glen before me was similar to many others in the Highlands, a wide, treeless valley, once carved out by a glacier. Outcrops and cliffs of rock higher up, multiple streams incising small, parallel ravines running straight down the grass covered, steep slopes lower down. At the bottom of the valley a diminutive river wiggles its way to a distant loch, dwarfed by its surroundings, through flat and no doubt saturated land. I disturbed a few deer, the stag is barking somewhere in the distance. And a little good news, my camera, after drying all day in one of my shirts, appears to have returned to life.
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