Читать книгу Ben Nevis and Glen Coe. 100 low, mid, and high level walks онлайн

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About 400 metres from the car park, the main path becomes a gangway carved out of pink rock to cross a stream. It bends left, past the waymarker at the start of the lower path, then rises for 100 metres across a pitched section and then between sheep-sized grey boulders. As it levels, three stream culverts cross it in quick succession. The middle culvert is where the upper path forks up left. It slants gently uphill, but with a couple of little zigzags to look out for. It emerges onto open hill at a grassy platform below crags of Meall Cumhann (small cairn, NN 1751 6896).

The path slants down, to left of a large boulder, then zigzags south down a spur with some birch trees, to join the main path just above the top of Nevis Gorge.

All three routes arrive in the meadow above the gorge, dominated by the high Steall waterfall on the right. At the meadow’s end the path forks, the right branch leading to a bridge over the Water of Nevis marked ‘dangerous bridge’ and consisting of three steel cables. According to your temperament, this crossing is either terrifying or terrific. It is not necessary – return is by the same side of the river – but it does let you reach the foot of the Steall Falls by a muddy path.