![]() ![]() This marked the start of the old Carnmore Estate: once the remote home for a gamekeeper and his family, it’s now available for rent (when possible again) to those wanting a more civilised week in the wilderness in summer (though there’s still no electricity or central heating). We had hoped to reach the middle of nowhere that evening, but conditions made progress slow and it was near midnight when we crossed the causeway – a thin strip of snow-encased concrete that spanned Fionn Loch, still several kilometres from our goal. I’d love to describe the route in vivid detail but as the one at the front, breaking trail, all I saw was seemingly endless banks of white. We left the trees, our head-torches on, with sleet falling thick and fast. The icicles that had accumulated on our eyelashes began to melt in the steam that rose from the pot But winter did give us something of an advantage: the many river crossings that can make it so tricky were now frozen, making the long stretch from this copse into the peaks more straightforward – if a little slippy. Being able to navigate with a map and compass is vital. As it is not walked by many, the paths can be hard to find, and an online search demonstrates how many hikers lose their way and require help. Under the shelter of the canopy we warmed our beans and veggie sausages on the stove, while the icicles that had accumulated on our eyelashes began to melt in the steam that rose from the pot.Įven in summer Fisherfield is a daunting prospect. Walking required all my concentration, so instead of trying to decipher his words, I nodded and put my head down again, bracing myself against the gusts. ![]() Here the trail, which had been a wider path, became a precarious slither along the steepening banks. The wind transformed Dwayne’s words into a series of muffled grunts as we emerged from a small thicket of trees on to the shore of Loch Kernsary. On a winter’s afternoon, it was getting dark when we left the car and the temperature was below freezing. Once we’d arrived in Edinburgh from London, we still had a five-hour drive to the start of our walk, at Poolewe. Thinking about this pre-pandemic trip now, in lockdown, makes me itch to get out to the wilds again, to be somewhere far away. That’s why, after a serious dump of snow up in Wester Ross, I was on the sleeper train with my friend and regular expedition teammate, Dwayne Fields, for a three-day, two-night camp in this most remote of places. It’s the “middle of nowhere”! While some might see all this, and Wainwright’s words, as a reason to stay away, I saw it as the laying down of a rather tantalising gauntlet. And according to Ordnance Survey, it’s home to the furthest point from a road on mainland Britain, on the mountain of Ruadh Stac Mor. ![]()
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