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From the
right viewpoint Slioch, whose name means "the spear", can also
resemble one of those great old jelly moulds, with its series of gullies
and buttresses falling down in a seemingly complete skirt around the mountain.
The upper part, the 'skirt', is made up of Torridonian sandstone, but
the mountain rests solidly on an ancient foundation of Lewisian gneiss,
whose slabby outcrops shine faintly across Loch Maree.
At the loch
edge, like a hem, woody slopes dip into the loch. The path, over half
of which is the approach march to Gleann Bianasdail to the east of Slioch,
begins just outside the village of Kinlochewe, at Incheril. A road then
a track goes north then north-west along the Kinlochewe River to gain
the loch shore briefly. Cross the Abhainn an Fhasaigh by a footbridge
then turn right up Gleann Bianasdail for 750m.
Turn north
before some waterfalls and head up for the col between Sgurr Dubh and
Meall Each. After the col bend left under the north face of Sgurr Dubh
for about 750m then steeply up to gain the south-east ridge of Slioch.
The ridge leads past two small lochans, up over a false summit at 980m,
traverses a wide col then just past a trig point the actual summit at
981m.
It's always
good to vary one's return, so from Slioch, assuming you can pull yourself
away from the view of mountains and loch, turn east to Sgurr an Tuill
Bhain. From there, a descent south into Coire na Sleaghaich (the coire
of the spear), takes one back to the col east of Sgurr Dubh and so to
the foot-pounding track back to the starting point.
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