UKC

I’ve been to knoydart a couple of time in the past but the last trip was sone ( 20 ish) years ago . One trip we had a mate who was living in fort William who pick us up at the end , we went straight to the pub in Fort William and then one of us got the train to mallaig to collect the car . The other trip involved lots of hitchhiking in the rain to get back to fort William and to mallaig pick the car up ( bad idea ) . When I finally got to the Nevis sport bar cold wet and fed up  my two mates were sat by the fire in the Nevis sport bar getting hammered with a well known mountaineer they new vaguely who was due to give a talk to which he arrived late for . 
so I’m thinking : leave the car in fort William and get the train to malaig . Set off from inverie and then end up three days later somewhere it’s relatively easy to get back from . ( so not kinloch horn ?)

any ideas ?

Edit : insert “ in the morning “ where you feel it’s appropriate 

In reply to mike123:

Is there a reason to get the ferry in and then walk out rather than vice-versa? We thought it made more sense to have Inverie as the place that you're heading for at the end of the walk. That also meant we could leave the car at Glenfinnan, walk in, get the ferry to Mallaig and then wait in Mallaig for a train to Glenfinnan, which is probably more fun than waiting in Glenfinnan for a train to Mallaig.

In reply to mike123:

You can walk back out to Glenfinnan and get back on the train to Fort William. 

In reply to mike123:

We did the 3 munros about 10 years ago one October, entirely by public transport from Oxford

- overnight sleeper, taxi to Glenfinnan, then walk to Sourlies (long day!)

- Sourlies - Barrisdale (booked the private bothy) via Meall Buidhe and Luinne Bheinn

- Barrisdale - Inverie via Ladhar Bheinn, stayed at the bunkhouse

- ferry to Mallaig, then the unexpected bomus of the steam train back to Fort William full of middle aged americans dressed as Harry Potter

- sleeper back South

an amazing few days, and helped by the clear dry weather albeit short days

nick

In reply to Ramblin dave:

This is what we did in 2005. Worked fine for us.

In reply to mike123: brilliant , thanks all. Looks like it makes much more sense to start at glenfinian  . We plan on camping with bothys as bad weather back up . Way back when I remember barrisdale as being an open and quiet good bothy ? What’s the craic with the private bothy ? I seem to recall that I’ve been into surlies but not stayed there , how is it ?

In reply to mike123:

My partner got back yesterday from a relevant trip, and for that they did the following:

• Day 1: ferry from Mallaig first thing, Knoydart munros x3 to Sourlies
• Day 2: south Loch Quoich munros x5 to camp E end of loch
• Day 3: north Loch Quoich munros x3 to camp upper Glen Quoich
• Day 4: south Shiel ridge munros x7 to finish at Cluanie

From the Cluanie it is then very easy to bus either back to FW (if car left there before Mallaig train) or to Inverness (if doing the whole trip by train from south of the Highlands). 

Obviously that is 4 days not 3, but scope to easily shorten it and end up at the Cluanie still with good transport links, or to speed it up and do days 2/3/4 over just two days.

In reply to mike123:

Sourlies Bothy can be quite busy (especially now with the Cape Wrath Trail passing by but it always was really) and a bit draughty, but still one of my favourites. It has a stove.

Barisdale is not an MBA bothy but you don't need to book it. The keeper's house is nearby and they usually call to collect a payment (might be £5 these days). It's a bit characterless with no fireplace, but perfectly functional. I don't know if the previous poster is referring to somewhere else - there are one or two other bookable places in Barisdale but the bothy is just somewhere you turn up to.

Beware of overnight parking in Glenfinnan these days - it is not easy! Someone on here recently mentioned that you can ask to leave a car at the NTS carpark overnight but this is not what the signs there say. I think all of the other overnight parking has now been removed - there are probably options nearby but nothing obvious.

In reply to mike123:

We recently (last week of May) left van in a layby a few miles outside of Glenfinnan and walked to Inverie via a few munros. We took the ferry to Tarbet and walked back to Glenfinnan via the Oban bothy. A fabulous trip made all the better by glorious weather and rain setting in an hour after returning to the van.

In reply to mike123:

It looks like you won’t be parking at Mallaig again, but just in case: I made a couple of trips on the ferry to Inverie recently. I got to the West Bay car park in loads of time for the 07:30 ferry but both times there weren’t many parking spaces left and there didn’t look to be many alternative places to park around the town. 

In reply to Thugitty Jugitty:

...especially so if you have a van. We weren't staying in it, but everywhere you went was no overnight van parking.  It was a right pain to find somewhere suitable before the boat to Knoydart.

In reply to mike123:

I'm not clear exactly what kind of trip you want to make. (Obviously, there is an infinity of options.)

If it's just to tick the three Munros, and also to drop in at the pub, then driving to Kinlochhourn, and then camping at Barrisdale, works.

In reply to abcdefg:

If coming up on the train, then taxi from FW to Glenfinnan or somewhere similar saves time compared to waiting for the Malaig train, and is pretty cheap (£30 to Fassfern this year).

train back to FW and travel south from there. 

In reply to mike123:

You could get the ferry in and walk out either to Sheil bridge or back to Mallaig via Tarbert - Swordlands. Or, head for the train at Glenfinnan. 

In reply to mike123:

Although the private bothy would be on your route from/to Inverie/Glenfinnan, it is private and minimum booking is 3nights. However, if you're lucky, whoever is staying that night might let you in but expect to contribute, it's no cheap digs. 

Barrisdale wouldn't be on your route Glenfinnan<-->Inverie, unless you're after hills. 

In reply to mike123:

Very useful thread.