Sunday 10 May 2015

Steall Falls and our last morning - Day 6 and 7 Invercoe

When we had finished our walk to see the North Face of Ben Nevis we found we still had some daylight to spare to check out 'Steall Falls' which has been on my 'to do' list for a while.

One tip for this walk - avoid busy times, and arrive early/late for parking - there isn't a huge amount and it would be a disappointment after a winding drive to reach it. We had arrived quite late in the day, so managed to get a space without trouble. For details of the walk please take a look at Walk Highlands which has been an excellent source of information for our Scotland trip.

There were signs of doom up all over the place warning of risk of death as the route up to the falls hugs the gorge high above. I was nervous enough about the walk without being reminded of the danger, although it's not an unfounded warning as there's been quite a few accidents there over the years.

The path is a little like the Lost Valley path - it starts off easy enough, but gradually becomes a little more exposed as it climbs. Due to our late start we were passing numerous people on their way back down so had plenty of stops whilst we waited for people to come past.






Once at the top it opens out into a green meadow with Steall Falls beyond looking impressive. You can cross the river to get nearer to them, but this involves a traverse over a wire bridge. We chatted to some other walkers who'd been over it whilst Steve wobbled over it and back. The river was quite fast flowing and deep below, so Emma and I were happy to stay on the shore.




The beautiful sunshine we had earlier turned into a shower so we headed back to the car. It was quite worrying to watching some families just allowing their kids to run down the narrow path - I am all for allowing children to take risks, but at such a young age they probably have little idea of the consequences of a fall down the non protected drop below.

We soon arrived back at our start point, and ended up picking up the two walkers we had met earlier to give them a lift into Fort William - they had been planning to walk the long way into town, but it would have taken them hours. It turned out one of them was from Bristol which seemed like quite a coincidence.

The following morning the day dawned as the mountains were covered in yet another coating of snow. We were sad to be going home on such a nice sunny day, and couldn't resist one last visit to the Loch to reluctantly skim stones and say goodbye. Staying by the Loch at Invercoe with all the surrounding wildlife was pretty special, and we were so lucky to have the sunshine mountain days to go with it. We shall be back......