Bikepacking Loch Ossian

We were blown away by the scenery, may us feel privileged to live in Scotland with its open access.

Cracking views Ilya…

Crackin!

When planning the route I looked at the contours and thought yeah ok, the start gave no hint. When we popped out of the woods after first few kilometres then the scenery wow. I had it on my list for years. I thought it as nothing special.

I thought it as nothing special.

Before you went I expect you mean!

Our first bikepacking trip (this was before we discovered the term) was from Corrour past your camp spot and up the Abhainn Rath to Meanach bothy. It’s not too bad to the bothy, some pushing and the last bit is boggy but should be OK on fat bikes. From Meanach there’s a track over to the Lairig Leacach and down to Spean Bridge.

The direct track from your camp to Spean Bridge is very rough for the first Km or two then becomes an argocat track. Might have been improved in the upper reaches by the estate since we were there.

The big problem in that area is making a sensible loop, if you’d gone over to Spean Bridge then there’s a lot of road to get back to your car and it’s pretty much all uphill.

Feels a very remote area despite not being that far in distance from Ft William and some major roads.

Whitestone: We did look at the black tracks up to Meanoch Bothy as a possible place to pitch depending how we got on and not finding a suitable pitch. Not been up there. Nice to know it is rideable perhaps given our packed bikes are not light! Can be done but at much slower pace. Thanks

A loop would be Lairig Leacach to Insch, tracks to Monessie Gorge, puggy track to Fersit, forest road back to Moy.

Ilya – your route to Corrour and down to Loch Treig is basically the original HT550 outward route. It went via the Devil’s Staircase to Kinlochleven then up past Loch Eilde Mor to Meanach and that “track” down to your bivy/camp. There’ll be quite a few videos of it if you do a search.

The Abhainn Rath is a lovely valley BTW.

Colin: the old puggy track is marked as meeting the track down from Lairig Leacach somewhere around “the minister”, could you pick it up there?

Possibly. I’ve not been through that section and there are bridges down on other sections. Try it and let me know 😂

Monessie to the Fersit Junction would only give a couple of km of tarmac and would remove all issues of track quality.