1 28.5km/17.7 miles/10-12 hours Ascent 1249m/4098ft

Glas Bheinn &Leum Uilleim Central Highlands SCOTLAND

Stefan Durkacz takes the train into the heart of the Central Highlands

SCOTLAND’S West Highland Line gives adventure-seekers access to the vast country around Rannoch Moor. Corrour station is a welcoming oasis amidst the moors and mountains, and a great place to start and finish your adventures. Refreshments can be had at the station’s teahouse, and there’s a youth hostel nearby at Loch Ossian.

Our route squeezes a lot into a day and a half, or one long day (for the super-fit) in summer: two Corbetts, two bothies and fine walking on long-distance rights of way. Glas Bheinn commands a particularly stunning panorama, from the Nevis range and Grey Corries in the north to the Glen Coe peaks in the south.

This route can be walked anticlockwise (as described here) or clockwise. An overnight stop at, respectively, Loch Chiarain or Staoineag bothies should enable you to return to Corrour in time for the lunchtime train. There are a couple of potentially serious river crossings (the Abhainn Rath at Staoineag and the Loch Chiarain outflow) so this route is best not attempted during or immediately after very wet weather.

ROUTE

Start/finish Corrour station GR: NN356664

1 NN356664 track to a locked gate and step over a the path shadowing the railway line 600m a path branches L towards An Diollaid and Leum Uilleim. the path by the railway. A little over 1km on, the path crosses the right next to the railway bridge and joins a broad track serving a mini the track downhill to Loch Treig.

2 NN328690 At a junction just above the loch, turn L and cross the Allt Crunachgan by a bridge where the burn plunges into on, just beyond the bridge across keeping on the path above Loch Treig. Eventually Craiguineach Lodge comes into view. Abandoned in the 1980s, the building is overshadowed Creag Ghuanach, celebrated as a rock-climbing venue in a poem stuck to the wall in nearby Staoineag bothy. Cross the gorge of the Abhainn Rath by a long wooden footbridge.

3 NN309689 bridge turn L on the path path upstream alongside the Abhainn the path etched across the slope above the river. Soon, Staoineag appears on the opposite bank. Opposite the bothy, cross the river by stepping stones and climb a steep bank to reach it. Staoineag is in a magnificent location but suffers somewhat from overuse, a lack of furniture / sleeping plat