The Land between Heaven and Hell

Room with a view, wild camp at Slisneach

In September 2015 I decided to do a 2 day run around Knoydart, the land between Loch Nevis (meaning heaven) and Loch Hourn (meaning hell). There were lots of reasons behind this, partly as I didn't have much free time I'd have to run, partly to practice the lightweight approach I'd need to master for mountain marathons and partly just to visit some old haunts.

As with most plans some parts panned out OK while other's needed adjustment. The full itinerary was to take in a circuit of mountain and coast with an ascent of Ladhar Bheinn thrown in.
I set out from Inverie for Folach Gate.
A light but persistent drizzle accompanied me along the quiet shoreline as I turned away from Loch Nevis onto the Ghuserein land rover track.

Into the woods at Folach Gate

Having warmed my muscles a bit on the pull up out of Inverie I jogged on the good track up to Folach Gate and made the most of the short downhill section into the woods. The forest track let me keep my pace up for a bit and my choice of New Balance trail shoes seemed to be OK so far. Anticipating wet rock on Ladhar Bheinn I'd decided to leave the more aggressive mud claws at home.

The smallest bridge in Scotland?

Forest running is all well and good but my love of the highlands is really about the space and light of the Glens. Breaking out of the woods I ran alongside the rushing Abhainn Inbhir Ghuiserein. The State of the ford here would give me a clue as to the viability of the rest of the route. The river forks into two main tributaries. My route was to cross the Alt Coirre Torr An Asgaill and to follow the bank of the Abhainn Beag up to the Mam Li, the pass between Ladhair Bheinn and it's Western neighbours. A tiny stream was crossed on the smallest bridge Ive ever seen.

looking back to Follach from the Mam Li

Crossing the main river I sent small trout leaping and wriggling from pool to pool as my shadow fell across them.
I pushed on up the glen to Mam Li. The cloud stubbornly clung to Ladhair Bheinn and led me to give up my plans of an ascent. This would drastically shorten my day but would give me longer to chose a campsite in the evening. Swings and roundabouts. One of the bits of "terra incognito" for me on this trip was the Corrie Sgamadail, The valley head between Mam Li and and Croulin.

looking back across Corrie Sgamadail to Mam Li

 My map and Google Earth sessions suggested no obvious tracks or paths between the two saddles. It lived up to billing and was pathless with shoulder deep peat groughs. At this stage the running element of the trip became somewhat "notional" as a slipped and swore my way across the corrie floor. My swearing matched by the bellow of the red deer proudly standing guard on the saddle that lay between me and the steep descent to the Croulin Burn. On reaching the saddle the deer had all retreated along the ridge and I was treated to some clear sky.

Rainbow over the Croulin Burn

Followed by more rain.

Wild camp at Slisneach

The descent alongside the Croulin Burn highlighted That my New Balance Trail running shoes were the wrong choice. There was little enough purchase on the soft peat but the more aggressive Mud Claws would, on reflection have been a better bet. So it was that with a muddy backside I found my way to the shore of Loch Hourn. A few more kilometers along the coast to Slisneach and I found my perfect campsite. Where I whiled away the hours until dusk reading and watching porpoise and whales huffing and puffing their way in and out of the Sound of Sleat.


The following day dawned cool, wet and windy so I didn't linger for photographs as I passed the ancient remains of nausts and rock shelters around the headland to Inverguseran and hurried along the track to Inverie and a well earned breakfast.

Lessons learned;

• You'll probably never have the right shoes for all the weather and all the terrain that you'll encounter on a trip.
• I'm too old to sleep on a piece of cut down karrimat.
• I took two different dehydrated meals by different manufacturers- I couldn't stand either of them.

The route I took is here (this is from memory not a GPS plot so please don't use the waypoints to navigate by).


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