Saturday – Tour of Ben Damph

Weather: grey, rainy, windy, sunny

Miles: 14.1

Grumpiness aside we had one last day’s fun to have. Andrea, Julia and Dawn decided to go for a walk round Diabeg, Paul decided that the lost washer might have gone missing in his garage last year and it was worth seeing if his bike would last a ride without snapping in two (brave man). The rest of us drove down to Torridon Hotel and set off for a few road km over the hill, stopping to take in the views over Loch Torridon.

Loch Torridon and Beinn Alligin

From the road we picked up a landrover track towards Loch Damh, passing some fish farm industry.

Loch Damh

At Doire Damh the track narrowed and contoured the shore for a few miles, at some point it was probably a nice well built path but the hard surface was covered in a layer of liquid mud washed off the hillside, splattery with the odd deeper bit. At one deep bit Paul managed an impressive slow motion not-quite over the bars moment, ending up lying on his handlebars superman style with his back wheel stuck under my bars and feet still clipped it.

Muddy track

At Kinloch Damph we picked up the trail up Srath a Bhathaich, climbing around the flanks of Beinn Damh, this was described on STW as “surprisingly rideable”, and with a strong tailwind this was definitely true. The path was very well built and slowly worked its way up the contours with only a 50 metres of compulsory pushing where it was a bit steep and water eroded.

Fixing

Nice path

Part way up my chain snapped, giving the others chance to have a sandwich in a hollow by the side of the path (there were a few of these, probably built to give shelter in the olden days).

Sheltering

As we continued it started to rain lightly, but wasn’t so bad as it was being blown onto our backs, further up the track got a little damper and grassed over but was still “surprisingly rideable”.

Surprisingly rideable

As the rain strengthened we reached Drochaid Core Roill and started the descent back to Torridon.

The top

This was quite excellent and would have been even more fantastic on a less windy/rainy day. The path gradually descended the Coire with bits of sandstone slab, rock gardens and stream splashes, dropping down to the main stream at a set of waterfalls. I was temporarily worried when I saw a path on the other side of the ravine, 3m away through a raging torrent.

Wet downhill

Then I noticed our path went upstream before crossing at a shallower point. On the other side of the stream the path continued down into the woods above the ravine. At one mini lift I managed to have my first proper fall off of the week, toppling down 2m of grassy banking with a soft mossy landing. As the path descended it got steeper and slippier, making slowing down for some of the corners bit exciting. All too soon it spat us out on the road by the hotel, where we got changed in the downpour much to the amusement of the people having afternoon tea.

The rest of the afternoon was spent having carrot cake and hot chocolate at the village shop in Torridon (where it wasn’t raining).

Loch Torridon

After a good stuffing we drove out to picturesque Diabaig (where it was sunny) for some sightseeing and annoying the crabs and shrimps in the rock pools. Turns out the ladies went walking round the north shore of Loch Torridon and hadn’t been rained on all day (although they’d seen the weather happening up the valley and on the other side of the loch).

Diabaig

Wreck

Fishing

Creature

We had tea at the Kinlochewe Hotel (good beer and good food but not the portions we had got used to… until the puddings came).

Back in the bunkhouse we got a good sleep until about 2.30 am when some drunken scots came into the kitchen next door and starting putting the world to rights, when they’d finished that they came to bed and started snoring. We were up at 7am to come home so we grassed them up for smoking in the bunkhouse and made as much noise as possible!