Spring Assynt day 2

[Ken Rennie]

The forecast for the day was sunny intervals until 10:00 pm and then increasing cloud with rain. I left in bright sunshine and drove the 20 miles to my first location in the short glen leading to Loch Lurgainn with Stac Pollaidh in the distance. I wanted to find a foreground for the mountain and had actually discovered a footbridge that would allow me to cross a river and get into different locations. The footbridge only appears in 1:10,000 maps and in the end is little more than 6 planks across the river. Here is the valley from an overlook a couple off hundred yards from the road.

I walked down the road almost to the Loch and cut down to the left and over the bridge and explored the lochside but the breeze had removed the reflections and the edge of the water wasn't nice but on a calm early morning with reflections and some clouds a decent image can be had from here, a location to store for a better day especially with the heather in bloom.

One of the real problems in exploring this area is the deer fencing. It is 7ft high with very infrequent stiles or gates and they are not marked on maps. The river looked as though it would make a decent leading line/ foreground so I went looking for and eventually found a way to get through the fence.

I think that they are both promising locations but require better conditions than this. A few clouds started to appear but they soon melted away.

It hadn't rained for a while and I decided to try and cross the stream, the footbridge was about half a mile downstream but my walking stick sank a couple of feet into the bed of the stream making a crossing impossible. This stream is usually a fair bit wider and deeper than you see it here. It was lunchtime so a trip to the nearby coast.

Back into the hills and a return to a previous location.

The last snow is just visible on Ben More Assynt, 10 days before this entire area was covered in snow and a week ago all of the mountains were covered, just bad luck.

On a few more miles to try and find a location that would give me a view into the mountains but with some of the Lochs as foreground. I knew that I would have to climb off of the road and it wasn't too steep to find a viewpoint but the clouds that were promised for 10:00 pm had finally arrived at 3:30am

Both images have had lots of fake sunshine applied. The sky behind the mountains looks wonderful but the sky behind me was thick cloud. Again this location and the entire ridge that I was on will need to be revisited later in the year with reflections and heather it could be terrific.
Back to Ullapool for food with my wife. She went off to a concert and I went back out to look for a sunset location.
I ended up at Clachtoll where we stayed last year but the sunset was poor.

A drive back with lots of red deer beside the road, having hit one a few years ago I didn't want to repeat the experience so a fairly sedate pace. A somewhat lengthy day for me and read for you. Waterfalls tomorrow. Ken

 

[AlanLichty]

Quite the adventure - thanks for bringing us along I like the shots with Stac Pollaidh in the background (shots 1-5) although the rest are also fun to view. Almost too many images to comment on them all.

 

[JimFox]

What a fun but busy day Ken. That's such a cool looking place.

That's too bad about the 7ft high deer fences. I wonder why they have them? Here we just let the deer go where they want to go out in the country.

My favorites are #3, 5, 9 and 10.

This made for an interesting and enjoyable day. As one of my friends tells me when I am out exploring, thanks for taking us along in your pocket.

 

[Ken Rennie]

Thanks for the comments Alan and Jim. Deer are a bone of contention here. They have no predators and the large shooting estates have gone, much of the land is owned by either local crofters co-operatives or the John Muir Trust, the same John Muir that was involved in setting up America's National Parks The idea is to re-wild the area and return lots of it to the native forests that were here. Without the fencing the deer just eat the young tree shoots so it is either fence large areas off or shoot lots of the deer. Ken

 

[JimFox]

Thanks for the comments Alan and Jim. Deer are a bone of contention here. They have no predators and the large shooting estates have gone, much of the land is owned by either local crofters co-operatives or the John Muir Trust, the same John Muir that was involved in setting up America's National Parks The idea is to re-wild the area and return lots of it to the native forests that were here. Without the fencing the deer just eat the young tree shoots so it is either fence large areas off or shoot lots of the deer. Ken

I was wondering if it was an issue with no natural predators. Here we have lot's of people who hunt deer, so that also probably helps keep the deer in check.

And that's cool that John Muir has a trust back there. I know him for his work in so much of California, so it's kind of cool seeing his effects even over there.