TUCKED AWAY to the west of Inverness are a series of parallel glens that will be well known to some readers, less so to others. Mullardoch and Affric are the most famous, their long lochs separated by miles of suspended wild space, summits strung out along days’ worth of skyline ridge walking, none of it hugely technical, pretty much all of it the embodiment of that slightly old-fashioned phrase, ‘the freedom of the hills’. Airy ridges you can really stride out on, lots of room to breathe – the good stuff.
I’ve visited both in the past (and written about them in these pages), but not so the glen immediately to the north. Strathfarrar and its four Munros remained out of reach. I kept reading about access restrictions. Different rules depending on the time of year, and a limit on the number of vehicles allowed in the glen. In the winter, it seemed you had to be a member of Mountaineering Scotland to get in at all. I’m sure I was overcomplicating things, but it sounded like a faff.
And, to be honest, it rankled a little. By all accounts, Scotland
