The Saddle by the Forcan Ridge

The Saddle, An Diollaid in Gaelic, is the Munro on the south side of Glen Shiel that Walkhighlands calls the finest mountain in Kintail, 1,010m high, with Sgùrr na Sgìne at 946m beside it. Of its several ridges the one that made its name is the Forcan Ridge, which Walkhighlands counts among the airiest scrambles in the Highlands. A longer west ridge can be climbed from Shiel Bridge itself; the round described here starts further up the glen, and its descent looks across at the wall of the Five Sisters of Kintail.

Walkhighlands starts at a layby on the north side of the A87, about 300m east of the track to Achnagart Farm, and takes a stalkers’ path that winds up and traverses to the col between Biod an Fhithich and Meallan Odhar. At the foot of the Forcan Ridge the route divides. The bypass contours left beside a drystone dyke to the Bealach Coire Mhalagain, and the ridge goes straight up. Its scrambling is simple at first and grows progressively more exposed, with sections of real knife-edge, and beyond the top of Sgùrr na Forcan an awkward 10m pitch drops steeply, avoidable by a gully to the left or a rake to the right. From the summit a path winds down to the bealach and peters out in boulder fields, and a sketchy path climbs to Sgùrr na Sgìne, perched above a steep face. The way down is over Faochag and straight down its northeast ridge, unremittingly steep on a rough, often wet path, to the road half a kilometre from the layby.

The hill is on Ordnance Survey’s Explorer 414 sheet, and Walkhighlands gives 14km and 1,440m of ascent in seven to nine hours, at its hardest grade, one grade lower if the Forcan Ridge is avoided. Citylink buses on the A87 stop on request at the driver’s discretion, Walkhighlands says. Heading for the Scottish Hills has no stalking information for the Saddle and asks walkers to follow reasonable local guidance. The round suits a party who have scrambled on exposed rock before and want the classic line in a single full day. It does not suit anyone who has not, for whom the bypass is the answer on the same hill; a long Kintail day with no scrambling at all is the stalkers’ path over the Bealach na Sroine to the Falls of Glomach.