An Sgurr and the bothy.7am, 17/04/84~ There is something odd about the walk north from the Torrain Duibh bridge by the chain of lochs, under the wizardly Cona'mheall, through to Gleann Beag, something uncanny that I've never been able to put a name to, but this was the way I took on the dreich Easter Saturday of '84. The brawling Allt a'Gharbhrain was the first obstacle, requiring a mile-long detour upstream for a reasonable crossing, and the Allt Lair would have been the next but for a fallen tree which I swung across on. By now the rain had turned to snow, more Christmas than Easter I thought, and the pull up from Loch na Still was the entry to an Arctic landscape - I had a minute or so of quiet panic, quite disorientated (pre-GPS remember) by the absence of Loch Prille from where it surely should have been, until I realised that the wide flat white area I could make out through the gloom was in fact the loch, frozen and snow-covered at 1800'. Relief made the descent to the bothy swift and agreeable. The next day saw a very forgettable squelchy traverse of Seana Bhraigh in steady sleet, and a thigh-deep wade across the Corriemulzie river to Coiremor. After dark the wind veered from SW to NW, and by morning there had been a considerable dump of snow, down to bothy-level (1000'). I'd set my heart on a traverse of the compelling Sgurr (Creag an Duine on the OS map) back to Glenbeg, and having brought only 1 day's supplies a second night at Coiremor was an unattractive option, but I was very doubtful of the prudence of attempting the route. On the other hand a clear blue sky, the prospect of spectacular and unusual views, 'nothing-ventured-nothing-gained', conspired to make up my mind. Crossing the Allt a'Choire Mhòir some way above the loch to keep the boots dryish left me a long laborious way from the north ridge, so to gain height while the sun lasted I took to the vague eastern shoulder, itself heavily plastered with soft dry snow, waist-deep in places and slow going - a good 3 hours from bothy to an Sgurr, where the view did, I think, make it all worth while. I'd seen the Sgurr in profile from Seana Bhraigh in the heatwave May of '80 (all 6 Munros on the 18th, wearing just shorts, socks and boots, the peat-hags like rubber crazy paving) but had no idea of what to expect between it and the plateau, not in these conditions anyway. What I found had me casting around for any reasonable alternative, but there was none, so the bull's horns had to be grasped - a few years later on a wet summer day I found it a awkward little scramble, but in this deep unconsolidated snow, ropeless, it was desperate, a case of looking for the safest places to fall rather than for the easiest route. (If this seems a strange logic, consider my position, alone on a candidate for the title of most remote and least visited peak in Scotland, in a world still innocent of mobile phones - any disabling fall would have been fatal.) In fact I took two little falls, the first trivial and lighthearted, but the second a real 'shi-i-i-i-i-i-i-i-i-i- . . .' event which left me shaken but not much bruised, this luckily the last of the difficulties. Interestingly (to me anyway), J. A. Parker and friend had been faced with much the same problem in March 1930, and solved it with a traverse on the west side of the ridge (SMC Journal no.110, Nov. 1930, pp.73-76), but each to his own, that was one of the alternatives I didn't fancy. A few more photos before the sun faded, with cloud building from the south, a visit the the Seana Bhraigh summit, then down to Glenbeg and a reflective night before the fire. The Prille - Still - Lair - Gharbhrain walk-out the next morning was wet again, and as fey as ever
