Solitude, sunrises and snowstorms on the scenic 44-mile Affric Kintail Way, Scotland

Route: Affric Kintail Way from Drumnadrochit to Morvich, Highlands, Scotland
Date hiked: March 2018
Number of days: 4
Distance: 44 miles

It’s sunrise, and I’m tucked up in my tent on the sandy shore of Loch Beinn a’Mheadhoin. I reach a hand out of my sleeping bag and fumble for my bottle of peaty mountain water, freshly filtered the night before. First – and not the last – surprise of the day: no water, just a solid lump of ice. Crikey. Having hit -7C, nine degrees less than the average low at this time of year, everything around me – including the loch itself – had frozen overnight.

I’d been obsessing over the forecast in the weeks before the trip, thanks to the pincer forces of Storm Emma and the Beast from the East. Stupid to freeze my nipples off in the Highlands while my friends were spending Easter drinking malbec by the fire? Probably. But there was no more snow forecast this weekend, and the Affric Kintail Way, which follows mostly low-lying gravel paths, would be sheltered and safe underfoot. So I persuaded myself there’s no such thing as bad weather and set off with a selection of natty new thermal layers to board the train for Inverness.

By the time I reached the start point in Drumnadrochit, a Nessie-obsessed town perched above the namesake loch, I’d forgotten all about the cold. I could only think about that night’s full moon and my boyfriend’s teasing warning about werewolves. That’s love for you. But as I set off in beautiful sunshine, any notions of rampaging wolf-men dissipated into the crisp, cold Highland air.

In and out of the trees

The route, an official trail opened in 2015, is clearly waymarked, so navigation is easy and the miles whizz by. Anyone not troubled by purism might want to skip the first 13 or so miles and start instead at Cannich: while the Affric Kintail Way kicks off with some pretty pine forest tracks (two ancient redwoods signal the turning point into the Craigmonie woods), it fast becomes expanses of uninspiring deforested land through Glenurquhat, where excessive deer and sheep populations have stumped attempts to regrow trees after the mass post-war felling. Then it’s a tedious four miles along an A-road to Cannich. Not everyone’s cup of tea – though having come from my flat in central London, right next to the UK’s most polluted road, I was just happy to be sucking in some healthier air. The A831 beats Euston Road by a country mile.

From Cannich, the trail heads southwest all the way to Strawberry Cottage at the western end of Loch Affric – the gateway to the wilds of the glen. I bought a Snickers then trekked the few miles out of Cannich, passed Dog Falls and climbed the winding track above Loch Beinn a’Mheadhoin (pronounced ‘ben a-vee-an’), pitching on a 300m ridge overlooking the dam and the snowy peaks to the north. I’d planned to do this 44-mile trail over an easy four days, giving me plenty of time for tea breaks, detours and lie-ins. But on day one I clocked 19 miles, almost double the distance I’d planned and against my wisest intentions (if there’s just one rule, it’s start off slowly!). Nice grassy spots are few and far between along this stretch, especially if you’re precious about the view from your pitch – which I am. So I walked and walked until I found one I liked enough.

Wild camping pitch on day one, around mile 19

I woke up sore and tired so I did exactly what I’d have done at home: stayed in bed too long and drank more coffee than was good for me. Back on the trail, the going was easy – a mostly flat track flanking Loch Beinn a’Mheadhoin. Every now and then, breaks through the trees offer views of the loch and its ethereal little islands. It’s sometimes possible to walk out to them from the opposite side, when the water is low and reveals sandbank crossings. They’d make really fun wild camping spots.

After only six miles, I spotted a secluded beach beneath the path close to the end of the loch – grassy, sandy and, best of all, deserted. It seemed absurd to stop for the day so soon after starting, but equally stupid to pass up the opportunity given my headstart. I staked my territory with my tent, tarp shelter and firepit, and called it home for the next 20 hours.

A day at the beach

Puffed-up like the Michelin man in five insulating top layers and three pairs of trousers, I sat out a couple of hailstorms and chain-drank tea as the temperature plummeted. This habit cost me a lot of gas; I hadn’t accounted for the extra energy loss in the cold, and was running worryingly low. Still, I made a final hot toddy and took a stroll along what I had come to think of as ‘my’ beach. Is this how wars start? Stopping at some west-facing rocks, I sat and watched a spectacular sunset between the peaks, feeling the burn of the sun – or maybe the whisky – on my face.

A beach at the western end of Loch Beinn a’Mheadhoin

I woke at 6:25am in a sleeping-bag shroud. During the night, which was the kind of cold that gets into your bones, I’d pulled the drawstring all the way, leaving just a tiny opening for oxygen like a dolphin’s blowhole. The air outside seemed eerily still and the light filtering into the tent had a mystical quality. Despite the pull of what I guessed was a dazzling sunrise, and though my bladder was about to burst, it took me a long while to move. When I did, I sleepily knocked the side of the tent and it snowed on me. Condensation, frozen overnight!

The loch, which had iced over at the shoreline, was millpond-still, reflecting the clear blue sky and white-tipped mountains like a mirror. Wow, I thought as I bared my arse to the freezing morning through gritted teeth. When it comes to wild weeing, women definitely get the bum deal.

My tent, water bottles and various other items had frozen, so I laid them out on rocks in the sunshine and waited long enough for them to thaw before packing up and setting off for a 12-mile day, which would take me into the rugged landscape of Glen Affric. The next few miles were much the same as the last – tree-lined track, loch to my right, this time Loch Affric. It’s worth taking a detour down to the beach on the peaceful western shore of the loch – the backdrop is stunning. I sat there for lunch and couldn’t imagine a better way to eat a Babybel.

It was shortly after this that I bumped into the first people I met on the Affric Kintail Way. The sky was clouding over, the wind was picking up and a pair of cyclists were cramming in a pitstop before the weather turned. I stopped for a chat and we exchanged tales of our frosty nights camping in the glen, the gentle-faced elder of the two sharing with me his mug of milky tea while his sprightlier pal handed me a slice of homemade banana bread. Such gents.

Leaving behind the flatlands around Strawberry Cottage with the renewed energy that comes with talking to people after days on your tod, I began the climb into the hills. It was beautiful and dramatic, with bounding deer, impressive waterfalls and rough, muted terrain that reminded me of Iceland.

Shortly after leaving Strawberry Cottage

About a mile past Alltbeithe, the UK’s most remote youth hostel (which wasn’t open at the time), it started hailing again. Except this time I had no tarp to hide under and it was really hurting my face. Crap. I checked my watch: 7:35pm. Sunset was imminent and I needed to take finding shelter more seriously. A quick recce told me the ground was too boggy to camp and, while Camban bothy was half a mile ahead, I had no intention of using it. I never fancy spending the night with strangers.

In the thick of it

A strange golden glow ahead gave the impression of clearer sky on the horizon. So, hopeful, I kept moving, past the bothy, across soggy pathless ground and… straight into the eye of a snowstorm, settling fast. So that’s what that lovely magical light was.

I left the path and climbed about 50m up the face of Beinn Fhada, narrowly dodging a fresh deer carcass buried in snow, to find safe, dry and – thank you god – spongy ground. After a hard night’s sleep on cold sand, this was the luxurious mattress topper of my dreams.

Turns out putting up a tent in the snow is a piece of cake compared with the rain: nothing gets wet, you just brush it all off and carry on. And once inside, I was so much warmer than I had been the previous nights. I pushed aside the anxieties of being buried in snow overnight, of not being able to find the track in the morning, of not having enough gas to make coffee, of crossing the precipitous ravine and of the steep, rugged and potentially slippery descent back into the valley. Then I drifted into a deep, comfy sleep.

Beginning the descent to the bottom of the valley

For the most part, I needn’t have worried. I had just enough gas to boil half a litre of water. And though the morning was a white-out with low visibility and high winds, the path was generally clear and stable, only becoming truly hairy as it skirted the ledge above a vast gorge, into which dropped a series of booming waterfalls. I used my poles to steady myself as I teetered along the edge, taking care on the ice while bracing myself against winds that were strong enough to tip me off balance. At this very moment a group of National Trust volunteers appeared out of nowhere, apparently to continue their work on the path come snow or shine, so I smiled and shouted a breezy “Hi!” – as if I did this all the time and, no, I wasn’t about to cry. Nothing like pride to force yourself to buck up.

Rejoining the river at the bottom of the valley, where craggy mountains began to give way to more hospitable hills, was like a topsy-turvy Narnia: walking from winter into spring. The sun was out, sheep were grazing on green grass – not a whiff of the snowscape behind me. I met a couple walking into the glen from the other direction; they’d started the Affric Kintail Way from Drum the same day I’d set out but the chill and their heavy loads had got to them. They made a call to spend their weekend at the campsite in Cannich and had hitchhiked to Morvich, where I was headed, to make some tracks from the other end.

They were determined to try the whole thing again when the weather picked up, and I really hope they did. For me, the weather added extra adventure but the trail – particularly the last 10 miles – would offer just as much drama at any time of year, whatever the barometer’s doing. If you’re doing it sub-zero, though, one word of advice: cuddle your water bottle at night. Pretty obvious with hindsight.

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