I've walked bits of Sutherland over the years.
Some Munroe bashing, some non-munroe bashing, Somehow Suliven always
evaded me.
We were planning Knoydart for a 3-4 day period but the weather at the start of
the week was not great and with an 8 and a 10 year old we did not want to
chance a long walk in with the tents only to get bogged down. We swapped
Knoydart for Suliven and set off to Strathoykel to prepare for the walk in.
Saturday PM was spend doing "bone caves" near Ben More Assynt.
The walk started Sunday around mid-day.
These notes document the walk, I trust thet will help
anyone else contemplating such a walk/camp.
This material is unchecked and is typed directly from memory the day
after the walk finished.
No notes were taken during the walk so the material necessarily will
suffer from faulty recall.
The party was two families - I'll miss out the others details until
they agree to their inclusion.
All times below are approx and remember we had an 8 year old with us.
| 5th May 2002
|
| 11:30 |
Drove to Lochinver. |
| 12:00 |
Trouble getting parked given that it was so late in the day. Managed
to squeeze both cars into reasonable places, A few sandwiches consumed
and we set off.
|
| 13:00
| Frequent stops - V warm for Scotland. Hard to keep pace up.
General feeling seems to be to camp on the tarmac road and sleep!
Pressed on.
|
| 15:30
| Camp at river [grid ref later - no map to hand].
It has beel a long slow slog. Not sure why, no real climb, track good.
Just not a good day for pace.
The chocolate melted in the scrog probably says something about the heat.
Settled in, ate and wandered back to see the Suliven Bothy. Nice and neat and
tidy. Long may it remain so.
Trouble with the coleman stove. It was filled with fuel before setting off.
Worse it was pressurised. When I opened the pump valve the non-return valve
was breached and it spat lots of vaporised fuel on my hand. Luckily I managed to put it out with no more that singed hairs on my hands.
Take care with these stoves. In a tent or on a face this would have been lethal.
Bed at 20:00.
|
|
| 6th May 2002
|
| 07:30
| No midges. Rise at 07:00/07:30
Leisurely breakfast and set off.
4 adults with packs, no kids with packs.
Tents left pitched.
Plently of water being carried.
|
| 09:00
| Walk starts.
|
| 12:10
| At top of Suliven. Some nerves amongst the kids about the exposure
but all made it to the top. Met a guy who had lost his camera.
Not otherwise busy at this time of the day.
Returned to the bealach for food and hill spotting.
Excellent views of Skye, etc
|
| 13:00
| Started back.
|
| 15:45
|
Back to camp.
Brew up, R headed to a plunge pool he had found (and swam in)
previous night.
|
|
17:00
| Return to camp where RM and KM had occupied the kids.
Apart from MM graveling SMs biadh everything seemed OK.
|
|
18:30
| Return to car. Note the reasonable speed on the way back compared
to the way out!
|
Food/water and equipment itinnery
Kit - The Malones
Protection
Stout walking books - goretex lined for the kids.
Waterproof cags and trousers for all. The kids equip now goretex too.
Summer trousers and no gaiters for S M I and D.
Thinsulate (equvalent) water wicking vests and fleecys all round. These
things shed the water quickly. Spare socks all round.
2 x 2 person tents. Both around the 3-4Kg mark. Wild Country Ilanois and
and an old Vango hurricane alpha - Different vintages. Both
loop/hoop pools.
2 x 4 season sleeping bags (adult winter campers)
2 x 2 season sleeping bags for the kids.
3 x sleeping mats (the kids use 1 cut in 2)
1 x handtorch.
Food - by the ton. High K stuff - some high fat too.
Loose pack - all in 'tupperware boxes'
Coffee, drinking chocolate, sugar, marvel (dried milk),
rice, butter, muesli(1 person only 500g).
[All but the Museli of the loose-pack stuff make it into 1 side pocket of
a 75L rucksack to give you some idea of the volume.]
Pre-pack
4 x Knorr soups (cream of chicken with croutons - highest K per
volume/weight) 4 returned.
6 x Super knoodles 3 returned.
1 x Loaf (toast and sandwiches).
1 ball of dough returned - probably representing 1/4 of a loaf.
n x Buscuits - snacky things lick 'tracker bars', ginger nuts, crackers,
oatcakes. About 25% returned.
Chocolate+++. [Some safety rations]. About 1/2 returned.
Scrog (1.5kg). 250g returned.
n x Nuts/raisins/dried apricots/dried banana chips/dried pineapple chips.
4 x highenergy pre-packed meals [Safety rations](all made it home).
Cookers -
1 coleman fuel stove (full) and 2 spare bottles (1l) of
fuel for emergency use. 750mls came back.
One billie about 1.7L - lid as frying pans.
1 toasting rack. I get about 100 mins of high burn from each stove on
a single fill (in summer use in Scotland). The stove did
1 meal and a few brews and still had fuel to spare. I would have
expected to be able to get around 6 hours burning on a single stove on a
low setting with the emergency fuel.
Matches
'underwater' matches
Other things
2 x packs of cards
All the above made it into 2 x 75L bags, 1 x day sack and 1 x 'schoolbag'.
S carried his sleeping bag and waterproofs. M carried one tent,
his sleeping bag,
his waterproofs, a sleeping mat and some spare clothes. The adults lugged
the rest.
More one day.