Across the Moine Mhor to camp on Tom Dubh

Camp on Tom Dubh

“A pointless and distant top -Stob Lochan nan Cnapan (Tom Dubh)”

Irvine Butterfield           The High Mountains of Britain and Ireland

When Irvine Butterfield wrote his excellent book in the 1980s 918-metre Tom Dubh was listed as a subsidiary Top of Braeriach in Munro’s Tables. A glance at the map shows that this doesn’t make much sense as Tom Dubh is some 6 kilometres from Braeriach’s summit but just two kilometres from Monadh Mor. The latter is now, sensibly, given as its parent Munro. To include it in a walk over Braeriach and its other Tops would mean a long diversion and is probably the reason for Butterfield's comment. It can easily be included in an ascent of Monadh Mor from Glen Feshie.

Recently I went this way and had a delightful camp on Tom Dubh, which Butterfield also describes as “the most meaningless 3000 ft ‘top’ in all Britain”, sitting outside my tent in the sunshine looking at the extensive views. It’s a gentle, innocuous hill situated far out on the Moine Mhor (Great Moss), that huge high-level boggy plateau between Glen Feshie and the higher Braeriach – Cairn Toul hills. Irvine Butterfield wasn’t impressed with the Moine Mhor either – “the ultimate in desolate wilderness, a landscape so featureless that it almost defies man’s ability to use map and compass” and “perhaps the most psychologically intimidating walk in Britain”.  I think he had a rough day here!

Remembering Butterfield’s words as I sat on Tom Dubh I briefly considered whether hills can have a point or meaning. They can’t, of course. They just are. We ascribe those attributes. They are not innate. I guess to some peak baggers Tom Dubh is irritating due to the effort needed to reach it but that’s nothing to do with the hill itself.

Loch nan Cnapan

The name of this inoffensive little hill means dark or black (dubh) knoll or hillock (tom). It’s not particularly darker than other bumps up here though but knoll is appropriate. With the other name, Stob Lochan nan Cnapan, it’s the second half that makes sense as the hill rises just to the south of the loch. Stob is puzzling though as it means a stick or post and anything less like a post than wide, flat-topped, easy-angled Tom Dubh is hard to imagine. Tom Lochan nan Cnapan would make most sense.

Why such a minor hill has two names also seems strange. Neither has been around very long in fact and if it wasn’t for Sir Hugh Munro compiling his list it may have remained a nameless bump on the Moine Mhor. In the original 1891 Tables it’s just called Top above Lochan nan Cnapan. It becomes Stob Lochan nan Cnapan in the 1921 revision and then Tom Dubh sixty years later in 1981. All this time it was listed as a Top of Braeriach, only being transferred to Monadh Mor in 1997. That’s quite a history for such an inconspicuous hill! (Information from Robin N. Campbell’s invaluable The Munroist’s Companion).

View across the Moine Mhor to Sgor Gaoith

I find the Moine Mhor and its hills fascinating and beautiful. I’ve camped on it many times in summer and winter. I’ve crossed it in mist, snow, and rain. It’s vast complex tangle of little stony ridges, mossy hollows, dark pools, peat bogs, and burns running in every direction, rimmed by higher hills is a wonderland of wild nature. In poor visibility navigation can be challenging, especially as walking in anything resembling a straight line is difficult once away from the bulldozed roads that mar the western side.

The welcome spring at the top of the climb from Glen Feshie

On this latest trip there were no problems with route-finding. The risks lay in sunburn and dehydration. I toiled up from Glen Feshie on a hot humid August day, thankful to stop for water where the path crosses the burn running out of Coire Brocair and then much higher up at the bright bubbling spring that is one of the headwaters of the Allt Fhearnagan. On some trips I pass these by. This time I drank deeply from both.

A light breeze provided a little relief from the sweltering heat as I crossed the Moine Mhor to Loch nan Cnapan. After weeks of little rain the ground was parched. Keeping my feet dry up here was an unusual experience, especially in trail shoes. The moor was a wash of golden brown in the sunshine. Close to there were flowers, yellow tormentil, patches of purple heather, the spiky lilac blue devil’s bit scabious in drier places, yellow buttercups by the burns, orange bog asphodel in still damp hollows.

View to Sgor Gaoith from the camp above Loch nan Cnapan

As Loch nan Cnapan came into view the breeze dropped. Pausing to gaze down at the blue water in its shallow bowl I felt the brush of the first midges. I searched round for a rise on which to camp in the hope the breeze might recur. I found a rather rough grassy spot on a bump with a light breeze and a good view of pointed Sgor Gaoith. I pitched my shelter and went down to the loch for water. Back at camp the breeze had faded away and I soon had a mosquito coil burning in the doorway while I made supper. Then I zipped myself into the insect netting inner tent for the night.

The heat builds at the camp above Loch nan Cnapan

Dawn came with condensation and more midges. The night had been clear. My shelter was soaked inside and out. Soon, though, the sun was shining strongly and the temperature soaring, driving away the midges and drying the nylon. The heat was already hammering down. My plan had been to go up Braeriach and Cairn Toul and then camp below the latter. But the thought of sweating up the long slopes to the summits with a full pack under the blazing sun didn’t seem appealing. I could have left the camp and just gone with a day load but the site had proved damper, bumpier and midgier than I’d hoped so I did want to move it.

Just a kilometre away rose the gentle swell of Tom Dubh. It would probably be drier up there and more likely to catch any breeze.  I could then climb Monadh Mor, a hill I hadn’t been on for many years. That seemed a much easier option than Braeriach with less ascent and less distance. So to Tom Dubh and Monadh Mor I would go

Camp on Tom Dubh

First I hauled my gear out onto the grass for packing. It’s always nice not have to do this inside a small tent. Then I rounded Loch nan Cnapan, ambled up Tom Dubh, and set up camp again, this time on a dry grassy site that caught a breeze from the south. It was further to water but I would need to go that way to Monadh Mor and could fill my containers on the way back.

After a leisurely lunch in the sunshine I packed a few items and set off for Monadh Mor. Having planned on carrying a full pack each day I’d brought a shelter that pitched with trekking poles. Now I had to do without them, which was interesting on rough ground. Still, I thought, it’s useful to know I can still manage without them.

I got wet feet fording the Allt Luineag, which was deeper than I expected given the lack of rain, but in this heat that didn’t matter and my shoes soon dried on the slopes of Monadh Mor, Looking back I could see a small green tent pitched beside the river, the only other camp I saw. It was probably less than half a kilometre from my tent but out of sight.

View down Glen Geusachan from Monadh Mor

Monadh Mor – big hill – has an almost three-kilometre-long wide and stony summit ridge that gives excellent views. The best, I think, are a little east of the summit cairn where steeper slopes descend into upper Glen Geusachan. Either side of this wide glen lie the steep rocky slopes of Bod an Deamhain and Beinn Bhrotain while beyond the foot of the glen is the lower Lairig Ghru with Sgurr a’Mhaim rising above it.

Beinn Bhrotain from Monadh Mor

A party of three passed me as I approached the summit cairn then as I sat having a snack two dogs rushed up. In the distance I could see their owner slowly approaching. Having established I was friendly one of the dogs dropped a stone at my feet and crouched down, looking hopeful. I dutifully through the stone. Both dogs raced after it. We played this game for some time until their owner finished his sandwich and decided it was time to move on.

Cairn Toul from Tom Dubh

They were returning to Deeside and so still had a long walk ahead of them. I had no need to hurry, being only an hour or so from camp. I took my time wandering back down. Back on Tom Dubh I ambled about the flat summit admiring the views. It is, I decided, a lovely hill. I was camped on the south side of the hill overlooking the long glen of the River Eidart, a fine remote place itself. A welcome breeze was blowing up from the depths The low evening sun lit up Cairn Toul. The sense of peace and silence was overwhelming.

Sun & heat

Once during the night I woke to see stars. There was condensation again at daybreak but not as much. The sun hit sooner here than at my first camp and the tent was unbearably hot by 7 a.m. I had breakfast outside, not something it’s often possible to do up here, at least not comfortably. A gentle breeze kept off the midges. I was happy to just sit here in the sunshine and absorb the beauty and wildness but eventually I did pack up and wander back across the Moine Mhor, fill up my water bottles at the spring, and descend the long stony track in the furnace of Glen Feshie.

Breakfast in the sunshine

I made a little video of the trip: