Meet to Elphin, 26th–28th April, 2014.
Present: Keith Cocks, Peter & Helen Ilieve, Tony Kinghorn, Graeme Morrison, Tiana Sidey and Hillary Sillitto.
Members who attended the previous meet to Elphin, in April 2013, will recall the deep snow that mantled the hills of Coigach and Assynt and lay as low as the hut. This year the snows of winter had retreated to the highest corries, leaving the moors brown and yellow in expectation of summer. Conival and Ben More Assynt, Munros that had attracted an alpine expedition last year, went untrodden by the party, who instead drew inspiration from Corbett’s Tables, Lists of Lesser Heights, and Inglis’s Contour Road Book.
First to reach the Naismith Hut on Friday afternoon were Pete and Helen, followed by Tiana, who had come by bicycle from the railway station at Lairg. Driving north from Edinburgh, Tony, Hillary and Graeme shared the car with two triffid-like cheeseplants that made their bid for freedom at Inverness, where it so happened that the man taking custody of them was the joiner who had installed the kitchen at the SMC hut. Last to arrive, pedalling through the April gloaming, was Keith.
True to the discouraging forecast, Saturday morning was wet and windy, with cloud obscuring the tops. Low-level outings were judiciously chosen by Keith and Tiana, who cycled to Achiltibuie, and by Pete and Helen, who took the stalker’s path to Suileag and Glencanisp Lodge. Hillary, Tony and Graeme were kindly given a lift in the Ilieves’ new Volvo (electric tailgate – I ask you!) to Loch na Gainmhich on the road to Kylesku, where they commenced the north-south traverse of Glas Bheinn.
This attractive Corbett carries a kaleidoscope of colourfully named lochans: Loch a’ Choire Dhuibh, Loch a’ Choire Dheirg and Lochan a’ Choire Ghuirm. The last of these has provided the title for Andrew Greig’s recent biographical work The Loch of the Green Corrie, although an inquisitive reader may wonder why the adjective ghuirm (genitive of gorm, which normally means “blue”) should have been translated by Mr Greig as “green”. Turning in perplexity to the Gaelic dictionary he will find gorm defined as “1. blue; 2. green”, illustrated by helpful examples such as “cloigín gorm = bluebell”, feur gorm = green grass” and even each gorm = “dark grey horse”. It is not that Gaelic lacks other words for green (glas, uaine), nor that it has no distinct concept of blueness (a shortcoming of the ancient Greeks, who were believed by Victorian scholars to have been colour-blind). Rather it seems that the hill-folk of Assynt simply chose to divide and label the spectrum differently.
Today, with mist filling the corrie, the loch was neither green nor blue, but grey and barely visible. But as the trio followed their compass to the summit an easterly breeze began to scatter the clouds, and from the cairn could be seen now the many little lochans that dapple the moorland between Loch Assynt and the sea.
In descent an ever-improving path was followed southwards to the Inchnadamph Hotel and a welcome glass of beer.
Sunday was a drier day that encouraged more distant excursions. Pete and Helen went up Cùl Mor (another Corbett) from the Cnocan Crag, while Keith and Tiana packed their panniers and set off à bicyclette for the hostel at Durness, a distance of over 50 miles with much up-and-down. The shop at Scourie having closed early, only a packet of oatcakes, kindly donated by Hillary, stood between the cyclists and starvation, as they journeyed through this desolate country of clearance and famine.
Tony, Hillary and Graeme also followed the road towards Durness (though by car) and stopped in Glen Dionard, whence Hillary and Graeme climbed the Corbetts Cranstackie and Beinn Spionnaidh, enjoying fine views of Foinaven and Ben Hope. Setting off westwards from the road, Tony had a longer day on some Lesser Heights and “delaying peat bogs”, as Seton Gordon called them, before eventually reaching the coast at Sandwood Bay and emerging in the evening at Blairmore. On the drive south to Elphin a grand sunset showed Quinag and Suilven to advantage, so several stops were made for roadside photography.
Monday’s weather was delightful, amply justifying the extra day’s holiday here in Sutherland. Keith and Tiana completed their gruelling circuit by cycling a further 56 miles from Durness to Lairg, while Tony, Hillary and Graeme went up Cùl Beag (yet another Corbett) from Linnerainneach, enjoying a glorious hour of sunbathing in still air at the summit.
A debate arose about the identity of some noisy birds of prey flitting round crags on the north ridge, with peregrine falcon and merlin postulated as the likely species. This ornithological train of thought, coupled with pride in the number of Corbetts climbed, inspired the following verse.
Corvid’s List
That peak-baggin' magpie, Jay Rooke,
Compiled a most recondite book:
Friends who once crowed “You’re ravin'!”
Soon a reprint were cravin',
And Rooke’s choughed at the plaudits he took.
Unless he be an unlettered hoodie, the reader will not need reminded that the Old French corbet comes from the Romance corvetto, a diminutive of the Latin corvus, meaning a raven. Thus that habitué of the tops, Mr J Rooke Corbett, was indeed “a little raven”.
