Its a few weeks since my last visit to “Quinag at 1000 feet”, due to weather and other commitments.

I’ve had a few days pencilled-in, but the conditions weren’t good.

Today’s forecast is mixed, but improving, and I’m keen to get back there, so I try to time it for the scheduled “improvement”.

It’s late morning when I arrive at the car park used by most of the walkers, and I can’t see Quinag, despite it being just across the road.

Coffee, biscuits, book, lunch…. finally a bit of brightness, so I set off down towards Coire Riabhach near to my last finishing point. Off the road, across the burn straight onto rough grassland that’s now losing its autumn hues and heading for the “winter desiccation” look that will last several months. I’m lucky; I hit a deer path, and it makes my ascent to 1000 feet a little easier.

Almost there, about a hundred feet short, and I disturb four stags that are having an afternoon snooze, apparently unaware that the rut is on. The camera is buried in my rucksack, so no photos. A few more yards and a mountain hare launches out of the vegetation where it had been invisible. It’s mainly brown, but has a bit of white around its belly.

There we go; 305 metres; 1000 feet, and the view opens up across Loch Assynt. And the view is grand, all except Suilven and Canisp which are trying to hide in the cloud.

I’m loving these grasses; soft feathery textures and an orangey-brown colour. Of course, they’re as hard as nails really; there’s nothing delicate waving around in the wind up here!

I get the camera out. It goes “Click” and then “Splat” as a big dollop of rain decides to fall at that precise moment and hit the lens. I clean it off and get a couple of pictures.

Turning around and heading north, I’ve got the cool breeze in my back and fleeting sunshine starting to pick out features and make it look like a painting. I’m very conscious that this weather can make very atmospheric photos, with a bit of luck.

Keeping my altitude isn’t easy; what looks like rough grassland also contains lots of wet, peaty gullies to negotiate. The peat isn’t that deep either; it drops two or three feet onto the Cambrian Quartz bedrock, which is angled the same as the hillside, and is also wet and slippy.

I’m getting good views of Glas Bheinn, in the east, across to my right, as it slips in and out of the cloud.

Spidean Coinich is way up to my left, somewhere over the top of the grassy slopes.

Sail Gharbh starts to appear as a very dark shrouded lump, still well and truly murky.

Closing in on the walkers path up to the Spidean, the bedrock breaks through more and more, and creates great foreground for me.

Odd bits of sunshine travel across the landscape adding to the atmosphere of the view. Which is kind of empty; just dead grass, but very photogenic, and also kind of full of hidden gems of stones, moss and lichens.

It’s decision time; left or right; 1000 feet or home. I’m at the edge of the big plateau between Spidean Coinich and Sail Gharbh.

Losing time earlier means that the sun is now too low if I carry on to my left, so I knock it on the head and go right.

But the sun is still just about hitting the little loch near to the path; below my chosen altitude, but begging for a photo! Sail Gharbh summit still only vaguely visible.

Back at the car park, I turn around and see that the summit ridge has finally broken cover, so I nip back across the road to finish my short day.

Southside: Creag na h-Iolaire Ard to Coire Riabhach

Picking up where I finished last time, just off the Glen Leraig path, I decided to tackle the section overlooking Loch Assynt.

Sun shining; a lovely day!

I used the opposite end of the footpath to get up there, and got a couple of great views on the way.

Arriving at 305m/ 1000ft, I stopped for coffee near to a small cairn that had clearly been there a while, according to the lichen and moss growing on it. A lizard shot past, too quick for me.

I’m walking on a grassy terrace, and it’s pretty easy going most of the time. Not even close to the main crags and buttresses. There are a couple of burns and small waterfalls. Some of the burns I hear but don’t see; they’re running just below the surface in gullies.

I don’t see a single person after I leave the road, not even on the top. At one point I think I hear voices, so I stop and listen, but it’s running water deceiving me. I was on Suilven yesterday; it was much busier than this!

Part of this walk involves some negotiation or compromise at Creag Mhor; my contour goes straight through a section that looks like a steep cliff on the map. Don says I’m going to need wings or hooves. Actually neither…. I’ve been following a deer path for a while, and as I get to the tricky bit, the path gains about 100 feet onto a grassy plateau above the crag. No problem, thanks to someone else’s hooves!

Lunch is up there, on a flat rock, next to one of a number of erratics sat perched looking at the same view as myself. Loch Assynt below and Conival, Canisp and Suilven in the distance. Behind me, the peak of Spidean Coinich is visible most of the time, but its not that close or imposing. My chosen lens for the day is wide-angle, so it looks even smaller.

Just past my lunch spot, I find quite a big bone on a rock, so I speculate that an eagle might have had a “table for one” and dined on venison. It must’ve had a similar view to me with my cheese sandwich!

Heading east, I’m conscious that the Cambrian Quartz of the Spidean is getting closer to the sandstone that I’m walking on, and wonder where the two meet and what it looks like. The rock strata are at entirely different angles.

Suddenly, I’m on the new rock, standing next to a juniper, and it’s time to descend. Below me are two lochs, Loch a Choire Riabhaich and Lochan an Duibhe. 

I had intended to walk between them on my journey back to the van, but it was well soggy, so I skirted both and followed the burn.

Part One…..

Ever since I completed my three day ramble up the Unapool Burn, I’ve been conscious that I thoroughly enjoyed the journey and wanted another one. I’ve never been one to do long distance footpaths, and it’s maybe because it’s someone else’s idea and I imagine I’d feel like a spectator rather than a participant. Or maybe that’s just nonsense. Anyhow, I’m lucky enough to live in Assynt these days, a place of opportunity if you want to be outside. And I do.

Quinag is one of my favourite mountains, and it’s one of the closest. It has a three-armed summit ridge, and very different landscape on each side.

On the top, it is, in fact, the top of the world! Don’t take my word for it.

Of course, most of the mountains of Assynt and Coigach feel like that, because they’re separate entities, all with astounding views.

I understand they’re called “nunataks”, as they’re the bits of the Earth that were left sticking out of the glacier when it gouged the land surface about two thousand feet lower to where my house is.

And they’re mostly sandstone. That’s a lot of sand that got turned to stone. And where’s the stuff that’s missing? The space between the mountains? It can’t all be on Clashnessie beach.

So I want to get to know Quinag a bit better, and do another “photo-essay”, and I’m looking at a map.

I could walk around it; all the way around it. Not in one go, but in a few day trips. Yes, that would float my boat.

I’m wondering how to put a little order in my disorganised head, and I realise that there is only one rocky crag that seems to block the way for a walk along the 1000 foot contour, about 305 metres in new money. I know that this could go wrong; there might be other obstacles I haven’t noticed, but I also know that I’m highly likely to wander off track too. Easily distracted, perhaps. It doesn’t help that I’m not actually bothered about the numbers either, artificial concepts that they are. Quinag doesn’t know how tall it is, and neither do the ptarmigans that creep around in the rocks up there.

16th July 2018. Here we go. As soon as I get out the van and start walking, then I know I’m committed to do it. I take my GPS machine with me and head up to the 305 metre level.

Today, I’ve decided to start with a walk along the western flank of Sail Ghorm, setting out from the road near to Ardvar. I’ve chosen this section as there aren’t too many water features; we’ve had so little rain this summer that the burns, lochs and falls are (in my opinion) not at their best right now. The start of the walk up to the shoulder is one I’ve done before, climbing up onto Sail Ghorm from the end.

One thousand feet sounds quite high; it’s a big number! However, here it’s not anywhere near the main stone crags, it’s quite a lush grassy terrace. I use the word “terrace” loosely…..

The weather’s a bit mixed; a few miles away, Nedd and Drumbeg seem to be in constant sunshine, but it’s very overcast as I arrive at “305”, and remains partly cloudy all day with big dollops of grey skies coming fro Suilven direction. But it doesn’t rain, and there is patchy sunshine too. I stop for coffee, and later for lunch, not because I’m hungry, but to wait on weather.

I stick to “305” as best I can, until the inevitable. I’m gazing up at an amazingly awesome pair of gullies that run vertically to the summit ridge, and realise that the right hand one has a grassy tongue reaching right into it. About twenty minutes later and I’m at 475 metres; whoops. The sun is burning through the clouds; I touch the rocks and take some pictures. Turning around, the heather that I clambered through for the last few yards becomes awfully slippy, so I sit down and slide down on my backside before I fall over.

Approaching the narrowest part of the Glen Leraig path, I recognise a crag I’d walked to from the opposite side, and decide that this is a good place to turn around. Before I do, I visit a couple of scars caused by water ripping open the surface of the planet, presumably after heavy rain up above. The first one looks quite recent and appears bare until I get there and find plants have colonised it pretty well. The second looks like a giant green zip fastener.

Dropping down to the footpath, I take the easy option until I get level with Loch an Leothaid, where I turn right up the hill to get back to my van. Incredibly, there is a bit of a path up here too, and I’m guessing that it was “constructed” years ago, and might have been an important route. Higher up, the path disappears, and I finish as I started across the rough peaty grassland.

There we go; another grand day out, and a project launched. Not only have I used the GPS today, but I’ve also recorded my thoughts periodically on my phone’s voice recorder, in case I forget to concentrate. Now I’ve written this and realise I haven’t listened to them anyway.