Corrour to Kinlochleven
15 miles April 2006
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It was our 25th wedding anniversary so I thought I'd arrange a surprise. Packing our walking gear and catching a train North overnight wasn't particularly surprising. Getting off at Corrour Station, the only station on the network with no road to it, was...
In order to get off at this station you have to move to the rear of the train as the platorm is so short. When you get off there is a platform, a signalling box and the station house. The station house is now a B&B and the signalling box now contains accommodation.
Having walked the West Highland Way some 3 years earlier and spent quite a bit of time in Glencoe / Ballachulish this struck me as an interesting way to get to the area. Corrour Station is in a fairly flat and boggy part of Lochaber, a little to the North of Rannoch Moor.
There are a couple of paths that head SW from Corrour Station up to Beinn a' Bhric, but I was uncertain about the terrain from there to Loch Chiarain. Consequently we initially followed the path NW to Loch Treig. Where we had started in sun and patchy cloud, we were now in heavier cloud and light rain. The path alongside the railway is quite wide, extremely boggy at the start and variably boggy thereafter.
At the path along Gleann Iolairean you are met with a rather forbidding sign about lack of assistance in the coming terrain. Compass and map was the order of the day, reliable smartphone navigation not yet being a thing. The path follows the flanks of Meall a' Bhainne. It is narrow and often uneven underfoot and fords several burns. Expect to get wet.
As the path starts to descend down Feith Chiarain the burn broadens and Loch Chiarain comes into sight. At the SW end of the loch is a bothy. We passed to the North of this and headed SW to the Blackwater Reservoir. We arrived at the reservoir where Allt an Inbhir ends, and followed the North bank to the dam.
From the dam we passed to the North of Dubh Lochan and followed the River Leven to Eilean Dubh. The path then goes through the woods to enter Kinlochmore at its Eastern edge, then over the bridge into Kinlochleven.