Light snow on the road to begin with
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Walk in to Barisdale in Knoydart. The camera zooms in at 52s to find Ian but he was no longer there! The camera looks around for him and eventually finds him, unexpectedly horizontal.
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Hunkering Down in Barisdale
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Walking from Barisdale to Inverie
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Marc Poley & Yvette went to Inverie, whilst we were on Rum, and Marc climbed Ladhar Bheinn!
Glen Garry
Knoydart
Mallaig
Rum
Glen Nevis
Glen Coe
Maps
Click image below for detail
Slideshow
Loch Hourne & Barisdale
Slideshow
Barisdale to Inverie
The Walk into Knoydart...
On 30th March, The weather forecast for the coming days was bad, with heavy snowfall predicted. Marc drove to Edinburgh through roads on the brink of being closed. At one point he rounded a corner to find the road blocked with a snow drift, which he smashed through! He had to meet Yvette in Edinburgh. We were sorry to see him go and persuaded him and Yvette to meet us later in the holiday.
We repacked our bags so that kit not absolutely necessary for the walk through Knoydart could be left in Grant's car. In worsening conditions, we drove the many miles of single track road to Kinloch Hourne where we left the car in the long stay car park (£1 per night).
The wind was getting ever stronger when we left Kinloch Hourne to walk along the path which runs along the south shore of Loch Hourne. We feared to stop, lest the forecast. was accurate. We didn't want to be walking through snow drifts of four to five feet! Ian and Duncan carried an extra bag of food between them, taking turns, whilst Grant carried an extra bag by himself!
In fact, the walk with our heavy packs was much harder than we had anticipated. When we got to Barisdale, which is in the heart of Knoydart, we fell into the Stable, a posh bothy, started a fire in the stove and ached. As predicted, the weather worsened, with snow and stronger wind.
Hunkering Down in Barisdale
The plan had been to spend the second day in Knoydart (31st March) climbing Ladhar Bheinn but the weather was much worse the following day. Grant went for a run up to the top of the pass at Mam Barrisdale, partly as part of his ongoing training for the first Brighton Marathon a week after the end of the holiday and partly to reccie the walk out of Knoydart. Ian and Duncan went for a walk down by the beach, where they found an old boat. Ian convinced himself, wrongly, that we had a 12 mile walk the next day. Hermione contented herself with a short stroll around the environs of the Stable. Most of the day we spent indoors, eating, resting, sleeping, drying our boots, playing chess and listening to the wind.
Inverie
We got up early on April Fools Day but not for tomfoolery - we'd agreed a truce on that: no practical jokes. Duncan negotiated a possible extra night at the Stable with the estate manager's wife, who kindly agreed to let us leave some food behind should we have needed to return to collect it. We walked up to about 1,500 ft to the top of the pass where Grant had run to the day before. Once there a hail storm began and the path was obscured in snow. However, the bad weather didn't last it wasn't too long before we were safely on the path and walking down the other side. Grant and Duncan found time for a blitz game of chess.
Eventually we reached the coastal road on the edge of Inverie and turned towards the bunkhouse which was our home for the night. We spent the evening in the Old Forge - the most remote pub on mainland Britain - and walked home under a canopy of thousands of stars.