Happy in the Rain

We got soaked but Caley got a very decent walk out of it. One advantage of Lochaber is that you can never really run out of new walks to try.
Thinking the surrounding commercial woodland may offer some protection from the driving rain we had a walk from Fersit to Laggan Dam. The current iteration of OS map and Google maps is somewhat out of date here. A track is indicated to run parallel with the railway line north from Fersit on the east side but it disappears in undergrowth after the last cottage and we had to retrace our steps briefly and continue on a higher level route. This was fine and more open in aspect than anticipated.
We tramped on and in my check on the Viewranger app I assured Mrs SJR we were very close to the dam. We passed some working areas of timber harvesting and a wood cutter’s caravan. We could cast an eye to the opposite side of the valley and get a fix on recognisable A86 road side features, initially unfamiliar from this new view point. We saw the large agricultural shed and the two cottages adjacent at Roughburn and the penny didn’t drop. We carried on. Roughburn, on the A86, is east of Laggan Dam and we were already looking back towards it. Mrs SJR asked how much further and I extracted the phone again and had to sheepishly concede we were well beyond the dam (may be a mile).

We should have taken the side track northwards where the caravan was parked. Anyway, we got there in the end. Laggan Dam is a spectacular structure of the time. It is worth noting that the perceived height of the structure does not in itself generate any additional reservoir storage. The function of the dam is to raise the level of the River Spean sufficiently so when the water spills away in to the outlet tunnel to Treig Dam it has sufficient height to flow by gravity.
Caley was happy.
On a sad note, it is a year today that we lost poor Bruce. Even on our walk this afternoon we spoke of how the poacher’s carelessly discarded deer bits would have been an irresistible distraction to him and we would have had a wrestling match to separate him from the stinking bones. He would have been happy in the rain with us today.