10 August 2025
I didn’t climb a Munro or even a Corbett all day but nonetheless I enjoyed an amazing mountain walk to Morven, the highest summit in Caithness before continuing via Smean to the equally impressive, but lower, Maiden Pap.
The recent wind had dropped to gusts of only 20mph and the forecast was for a mainly dry day. My husband dropped me off at the end of a six mile side road, terminating as a public road just before reaching Braemore Lodge. It all looked splendidly remote; the peaks appeared to have very steep rocky tops and I wondered how it would be possible to walk to the summits.
The walk-in along a track to near an old cottage at Corrichoich took about an hour. The views towards Maiden Pap didn’t give any clues as to a walking route and I even wondered whether I would eventually decide to bypass the summit. Soon I was past Maiden Pap and the view of Morven, also with a rocky top to the cone, became the focus of my attention.
Leaving the track, I was very fortunate to find and follow a path, faint and indistinct in parts, all the way to where the steep upward ascent of Morven began. I could see that I was rapidly catching two people ahead of me who seemed to be following a different line towards the same place as me. Indeed I had been lucky (or skilled!) as I found out that they had followed a very tussocky route without any discernible path.
I ascended ahead of the father and son who stopped for a break. They owned the car that I’d seen at the place where I’d been dropped off. The path was distinct at that stage and climbed steeply through the heather, the slope eased somewhat by following zig zags.
I was quite far ahead at that stage but then the path disappeared into a band of boulders and rocks which I was slow to cross as I tried to see the way ahead. The pair caught me as I reached a second rocky area and they forged ahead. Having followed them across that second rocky band, there was another path. I could see a summit but remembered that there is a false summit on the route – this was indeed the false top. I bypassed this top and then made a small amount of descent before ascending on a gradual incline to the true summit (706m).
The view was sensational and extensive as this is the highest ground for quite some distance.
The three of us sat at the summit enjoying well deserved snacks. The two men were planning to descend and return to their car as they had a journey to make back to Edinburgh / Glasgow. I was still ambivalent about tackling Maiden Pap but the older man suggested that I could descend by my ascent route and walk round the base of the cone so as to avoid the most steep descent. It was always worth a look anyway.
The descent of Morven didn’t seem as technically difficult as the ascent. I followed a slightly different line to the two men and ended up a few yards to the south of the path through the heather but was able to contour round to it. I think I missed some of the boulder area by doing this.
Once we were near the bealach, I turned off the path to head on pathless terrain towards Smean. It was slow going. There’s a first summit at 460m and I plodded onwards and upwards thinking that was Smean, the summit where I had decided I would eat my lunch. When I arrived there, I realised that Smean was still over 0.5km away and there was a further ascent of just over 50m net; with downhill bits and going up and down over peat hags it was much more total ascent!
The highlight was seeing an adder, but it slithered rapidly away from me.
I arrived at the rocks of Smean (511m) just before 2pm for a late lunch stop. I didn’t ascend the rocky tor.
Lunch over, I descended from Smean crossing further boggy areas. The final approach to the base of Maiden Pap was easier across dry, heathery slopes.
I found a path ascending the initial part of the cone but it ended “nowhere” so I merely climbed up the steep heather-clad ground. I reached another path and followed this all the way to a point near the top where there were upward paths to the left and right. The path on the left led to the higher summit point (484m) and that’s where I went first.
I went to the lower top afterwards and could see a very steep path to the north but I decided to descend initially the way I had ascended. After heading south, a path of sorts followed round to the east once I was off the steepest part. I was able to head north on some animal paths and over boggy areas towards the track I had been on in the morning.
As I headed back towards the road along the track, I could look back and see all the summits I had climbed over. Having completed the walk, it looked much less forbidding than it had appeared at first sight.
I looked it up afterwards and discovered that the mountain tops consist of Devonian conglomerate full of rounded pebbles of quartzite and granite cemented by silica and resistant to erosion compared to the surrounding landscape. The formations are named inselbergs – an isolated rock or mountain rising abruptly from a surrounding plain.
I had enjoyed a scenic and memorable expedition – definitely recommended!
Where's Kathryn? 