Photographs and maps of an ascent of the Corbett Beinn Odhar above Auch Glen and the West Highland Way on route from Tyndrum to Glen Coe

Location: Glen Orchy & Loch Etive
Map: OS Landranger 50
Distance: 7 miles / 11 km
Time: 3-4 hours
Terrain: Moderate trail walk

Much of the West Highland Way has good transport links and lends itself well to day walks and this section is no exception. It is also one of the ﬁnest sections of the Way and a grand walk in its own right.
For much of the route you follow the line of the Military Road engineered by Major William Caulfeild between 1750 and 1752 as part of the road building programme intended to make it easier for British govemment forces to move between barracks and thus help to subdue any uprisings.
These roads were commissioned following a survey by General Wade after the London government had been given a severe fright by the advance of Bonnie Prince Charlie’s Jacobite army as far south as Derby in the winter of 1745/46.
Caulfeild's road remains impressively sound, with moderate gradients and a good ﬁrm surface, allowing you to enioy the surrounding landscape to the full. The only exception is a fairly short section where the Military Road is blocked and you have to go uphill, along and then down on a rough, stony path.
Leaving Tyndrum, note the amusing wooden sculptures carved from local wood and then pass the newish Tyndrum cemetery. The track continues steadily uphill past a water treatment works and then breaks out into the open. To the right Beinn Odhar { appropriately "dun coloured hill”) rises steeply. Your route is shared by the A82 road and the West Highland Railway.
Before long the centrepiece of the walk comes more prominently into view ahead of you — the imposing bulk of Beinn Dorain, celebrated in verse by the Gaelic poet Duncan Ban Macintyre, who was born at Inverveigh in 1724. A translation does not do Macintyre’s sonorous verse full justice but hillwalkers will identify with him when he speaks of being:

“... away to climb rough country, and late would I be coming home;
the clean rain and the air on the peaks of the high mountains helped me to grow,
and gave me robustness and vitality”.

Beinn Dorain (probably “hill of streams”) looks like a conical peak from here but what you see is actually the end of its summit ridge, which rises to I076 metres. With this glorious scene ahead of you, and the Blackmount hills appearing to its left, you can stride easily down past the farm at Auch and cross the Allt Chonoglais by a lovely old bridge. To the right, the railway takes a huge swing round the glen to maintain its height with several viaducts — a fine piece of civil engineering.
From here to Bridge of Orchy the going is easy but you should note that there is no shelter of any kind and given that the area has a high average rainfall ﬁgure of more than 2000mm, good waterproofs are a must.
As you approach Bridge of Orchy, you can see on the right the corrie between Beinn Dorain and its neighbouring Munro, Beinn an Dothaidh (1004m); this is the usual line of approach for those climbing the two hills and also provides a way through to Glen Lyon in the east.
The Way runs down past the station to the Bridge of Orchy Hotel which has a “Walkers Welcome” sign on its doors and offers accommodation and refreshment in comfortable surroundings before your journey back by bus or train.

Route:
Follow West Highland Way signs trom beside Brodie's Stores in Tyndrum uphill on road then track.
Go through gate and follow track. ln about 2.5km go uphill on rough stony path as signed.
Traverse hillside tor about 400m then drop steeply down to pass under railway and rejoin track.
Follow track past Auch Farm and on to Bridge ol Orchy. descending past the station to the Bridge of Orchy Hotel.