Sgurr Eilde Mor trail head in Kinlochmore.
For path to Sgurr Eilde Mor turn left 350m after trail head.
Overview of route to Sgurr Eilde Mor around Sgor Eilde Beag.
Upper section of route to Sgurr Eilde Mor.
| Sgurr Eilde Mor from
Kinlochmore Sgurr Eilde Mor |
| Estimated net time | 4-5 hours | ||
| Difficulty | No difficulties. | ||
| Drinking water | Several sources of running water in the lower part of the route and also from the stream draining from Coire an Lochain. | ||
| GSM coverage | Coverage throughout the route (June 2014). | ||
| Parking | Room for many cars at trail head car park. | ||
| Start height | 17 metres | ||
| Vertical metres | 1080 metres for the roundtrip. | ||
| Trip distance | 13.2 km | ||
| GPS-file | X | ||
| Map |
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| Route photo |
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From the round about where roads A82 and A828 intersect, near the west end of Loch Leven, approximately 21 km (13 mi) south of Fort William, drive 4.4 km (2.7 mi) east on road A82 to Glencoe village. Turn left onto road B863 to Kinlochleven and drive 10.9 km (6.8 mi) to the bridge crossing River Leven. Continue another 200 metres and turn right where signed for "Grey Mare's Waterfall". Drive 140 metres to the end of the road, turn right, and find parking on the left hand side of the road after 20 metres.
From the car park follow the path into the forest and turn right in the T-junction after 50 metres. Follow this path 300 metres and turn left up into the forest just before a small house. Then turn right when you get to another T-junction after another 110 metres. Stay on this path a couple of hundred metres to an old dam. Walk along the dam and then turn left and head uphill. There are a number of paths above the dam, and navigation can be a little messy for a few tens of metres, but there is a well defined gravel path above this section. Once on this path follow it north-east for 2 km, until you get close to a gravel road. Fork left in the path junction just before the gravel road, cross the gravel road and continue on the path on the other side of the road.
Follow the path 2.5 km, traversing the south side of Na Gruagaichean, up to a flat area. The path now becomes very vague, but just continue north-east towards Sgurr Eilde Mor, making sure you stay right of the ponds in this flat section. Approach Sgurr Eilde Mor by crossing the stream draining from the south side of Coire an Lochain (the nice lake west of Sgurr Eilde Mor). Continue 400 metres after you've crossed the stream and then turn left and head up Sgurr Eilde Mor's south slopes. You will find a vague path here and there, but there's no need to look for a path if you don't find it. There are a couple of short sections of stable boulder, and higher up you're likely to use your hands in one or two places, but there are no technical difficulties. Above this the terrain gets flatter along the last few metres to the pile of stones at the summit.
Descend by reversing your ascent route.
The whole family drove to Kinlochleven, from our rented house at North Ballachulish, this Thursday. The weather forecast was pretty miserable so we agreed that Elisabeth, Njål and Sigurd would do a few hours of indoor climbing at the climbing centre, while I would go for a walk.
I chose to hike Sgurr Eilde Mor, which turned out to be a nice walk and provided very fine views from the summit. There were definitely a lot of clouds but I never got rain, and if it wasn't for the fact that the family would be waiting for me I would have thrown in several other tops.
After the hike I picked up the others, who had had a good climbing session at The Ice Factor National Ice Climbing Centre in Kinlochleven. On the way back to our house we stopped at the acclaimed Lochleven Seafood Café and bought lobster.