Elphin - Taigh nam Famh - May 2026
Meet report by The Boss
Our third visit to Taigh nam Famh at Elphin. Our last visit was 10 years ago in 2016, when we were blessed with very good sunny, dry and hot weather for the complete week. Unfortunately this year the weather was the opposite, with a cold and strong northerly wind for all of the week plus occasional rain showers, several hail showers and new snow on the hills overnight! However in-between the showers we did see a fair bit of sun. Consequently we made use of the lounge wood burner most evenings. The only consolation was that we didn’t see a single midge all week!
Eight people arrived on the Friday, six on the Saturday and Sofia on the Monday evening. People travelled there by car, train & hire car and motor bike (Brian and Dario).
The hut doesn’t seem to have changed much since our previous visit there, except that now there is a £1 and £2 coin meter for the electricity for heating, hot water and the power sockets (we spent £42 on electric for the week; it would have been much more if the drying room heater had worked). The electric for the fridges and lighting is included in the hut fees.
Still no mobile reception or Wi-Fi at the hut. The red BT phone box is almost opposite the bottom of the hut drive and the line/number luckily still works.
Some of the roads in Assynt area are part of the NC500 (North Coast 500 circular route from Inverness, launched back in 2015), which in my view has ruined the area, with a large increase in tourist road traffic, numerous camper vans parked in almost every layby and car park and some vehicles treating it like a race track! Some local people have renamed it the Indy 500, after the US race circuit, because of some drivers' bad behaviour. Also a lot of the accommodation on the route now seems to be booked up for months ahead!
The route has become a victim of its own success.
Note that people’s activities have been taken from their completed Route Cards, and might not necessarily reflect what actually happened when they were out! If you didn’t fill a route card in, then I won’t have known what you intended to do and maybe even have done.
[On Friday 8th, having picked up a hire car in Inverness after the sleeper train, I stopped off en-route to climb Beinn Dearg, Cona’ Mheall, Mheall nan Ceapraichean and Eididh nan Clach Geala. Four more Munros. It was a great circuit, but Beinn Dearg was the absolute star of the show. I ascended the long NW ridge from Inverlael, which gives great views into the corrie — and a very handy wall for navigation! — Ed./Matt]
Saturday 9th
Probably the best day of the week in terms of the weather, with only a rain shower late afternoon/early evening.
Bernie and Brian on the way up Conival
Bernie, Matt Cripsey, Brian: Conival 987 metres, Ben More Assynt 998 metres (3,274 ft.), narrow ridge to Ben More Assynt south summit (a grade 1 scramble), followed by some more ridge and then a quite steep grassy descent, then an undulating boggy traverse round to gain the Bealach under Conival and so return to our starting point of Inchnadamph. The route described in some guidebooks descends from the ridge earlier than we did and from below that descent looked absolutely horrible! A 7.5 hour round trip.
Gill, Peter, Jeremy, Sam, Bob, Dario: Quinag from the A894 car park. Three summits of Sàil Gharbh: 808 metres (2,651 ft.), Sàil Ghorm: 776 metres (2,546 ft) and Spidean Coinich: 764 metres (2,507 ft). Bob turned back at the Lochan and drove north to Kylesku * to admire the curved concrete box girder road bridge (which replaced the old ferry), as he is an ex civil engineer, and to also have a pint. In 2019, the bridge was classified by Historic Environment Scotland as a Category A structure, recognising it as "visually striking and technically innovative".
Katie & Matt, Cat, Mark and Jose arrived today.
Every day that we were out, we heard the sound of cuckoos in almost every valley and woodland. I use to hear them in Surrey, but I haven’t heard one locally for years.
* During World War II, the remote waters around Kylesku in the Scottish Highlands served as the clandestine training ground for the XII Submarine Flotilla. Submariners and divers practiced here in highly secretive, miniature X-Craft submarines and Chariot human torpedoes. There is a memorial cairn at Kylesku on Loch Cairnbawn, remembering the 40 men of XII Submarine Flotilla who lost their lives either in training or while on frontline operations.
Sunday 10th
Matt & Katie & Archie, Jose, Dario: the footpath from Elphin towards Suilven and the hills just to the north of it. Headed back when the rain started (midday). Poor old Archie had to be de-ticked after every countryside walk, which he wasn’t that keen on. I don’t think that anybody else got any ticks as it was far too cold and windy for anybody to wear shorts out on the hills.
Matt Cripsey: a very early start to ascend Suilven 731 meters (2,398 ft) from Glen Canisp Lodge and back the same way, before the rain started. [4am was early even by my standards! The walk-in wasn’t as long as I’d thought, and the ascent fairly short, but this was a life-list mountain and it was fantastic to stand at the summit entirely alone and look out over the fleeting views of Assynt. I also saw several cuckoos wheeling around the lower crags, calling as they chased each other. I was back at the car by 11am so spent the rest of the day driving around the coast, via Drumbeg. There was a stunning white beach at Clachtoll. — Ed./Matt]
Sam & Jeremy, Brian, Bernie, Gill, Peter, Cat, Mark: walk to the Bone Caves and back (in the rain, which was quite heavy at times). There are 4 main caves which are quite impressive; from left to right they are named Fox's Den, Bone Cave, Reindeer Cave and Badger Cave. Finds in them included the remains of Northern Lynx, Arctic Fox, Reindeer, Otter and even a Polar Bear. This was the day when we discovered that the hut drying room wasn’t that efficient as it only had a dehumidifier working as we couldn’t manage to plug the electric heater into the wall socket.
Monday 11th
Gill, Bernie, Jose, Sam, Jeremy, Matt & Katie, Bob: Cùl Beag 769 metres (2,523 ft) from the Clar Loch car park. Gill, Jose and Katie ascended the steep hillside up to the Creag Dhubh ridge, but Bernie and Sam circumnavigated it, to meet them at a midway Lochan. Bob and Matt turned back after a while with Archie. It was quite a long, undulating and boggy walk to get to the mountain and return afterwards. Descending, just below the summit we caught a brief glimpse of a rapidly moving large mountain hare.
Dario and Brian looking wistfully towards Suilven from Cul Mor
Matt Cripsey, Brian, Dario: Cùl Mòr 849 metres (2,785 ft) from the Knockan Crags car park. Their walk had hardly any bog. Matt departed afterward to catch his overnight train from Inverness back to London.
Sofia arrived from Glasgow. You might remember her from when she joined the Onich meet for a few days back in May 2023.
Tuesday 12th
Brian and Dario: a long ride on their motorbikes, first west to Lochinver and around the coast to Achmelvich beach, north up to Durness ( a quick visit to Smoo cave), across to Tongue, down to Lairg and then back west to Elphin. They had to make a small diversion somewhere near Lairg as Dario was running very low on fuel.
Lochinver Larder
I think that everybody else went for sightseeing drives today due to the poor weather forecast, which in the end turned out to be not as bad as predicted. Several idyllic sandy beaches were visited, but as it was only May, the seawater was still very cold. Not that anybody actually went in! Most people managed to visit the Lochinver Larder (aka The Pie Shop) sometime during the week.
Wednesday 13th
Brian and Bernie: walk to Knockan Crags Nature Reserve to see the Moine Thrust *, Elphin Village Hall (craft fair) and finish at the Elphin Tearooms.
Bob: walk from just SE of Ledmore Junction along a forest track to Bemore Lodge and back. A lot of the forest has been felled and more houses built since the map was printed.
Other people went for more scenic drives today.
* The Moine Thrust is a major geological fault in the Scottish Highlands where older rocks (up to a billion years old) were pushed horizontally over younger rocks (around 500 million years old). Formed about 450 million years ago during the Caledonian Orogeny, it is one of the most famous thrust faults in the world.
Thursday 14th
Jeremy & Sam departed to friends at Nethy Bridge.
Sofia departed back to Glasgow.
Inverewe Gardens
Gill, Peter, Bernie, Cat, Mark, Bob: drove to Inverewe and visited the Inverewe Gardens (Scottish National Trust). Impressive plants and trees to be growing this far north. In previous years there has been a heronry in the trees, but last year the Sea Eagles took all the chicks and so far the herons haven’t yet returned.
Brian, Mark, Jose: walk from Elphin to do a circular route up over Suilven and back. They underestimated the time it would take them, and ended up returning to the hut at 9:35 pm, having been out for 12.5 hours! Some of the party were quite tired when they got back! Luckily we were sufficiently far north that it stayed light for them all of the time they were out, in spite of the gloomy evening weather.
We tried to tidy up the hut as much as possible, as people would be departing early tomorrow morning, or in Dario’s case sometime overnight.
Friday 15th
The final tidy-up of the hut. People were either leaving early and travelling back home direct or else breaking the journey up by staying with friends on route. Bob and I took 13.5 hours to travel the 650 miles back home with no delays at all, even on the usually busy M25.
After we returned home I continued to check the Elphin weather forecast for the rest of May and the poor weather continued for all of the time! It wouldn’t have mattered which week we had booked, as the weather was unusually poor for NW Scotland for all of May.
Where Next?
It only leaves one more thing – where to go to in Spring 2027?
I already have had a few ideas from some people:
The Outer Hebrides
Shetland Isles
Isles of Scilly
Galloway, SW Scotland
Northumberland
Have you got any bright ideas? If so, then please let me know ASAP, ideally with practical accommodation possibilities at reasonable prices for roughly 12 to 15 people.
Roll Call
Bernie (ML)
Bob
Brian
Dario
Peter
Gill
Cat
Mark B
José
Sofia (guest, friend of José’s)
Matt Cripsey
Katie & Matt (guest) Cunnah & Archie (their collie dog)
Jeremy & Samantha