Devil’s Staircase / Ciaran Path Ride Report

I’ve been wanting to do this route (gps: http://connect.garmin.com/course/1854953) for a while and I finally persuaded three others to give it a bash. Driving up past The Loch the clouds started to lift and we arrived in Glencoe to a perfect summer’s morning to tackle this classic route.

The route starts out by climbing up the Devil’s Staircase to over 500m, This was a tough start but every route has to have some hike-a-bike. The descent down towards Kinclochleven was fast and rocky and great warm up for the rest of the ride. We then headed up towards the Blackwater Dam, admiring the incredible effort that went in to building the huge structure over one hundred years ago. We crossed over to the top of the Ciaran Path and stopped for a spot of lunch before tackling the descent. I’ve been told various things about it, ranging from “death on a stick” to “alright” so I was a bit apprehensive.

As if by magic a lone mountain biker caught up with us. He assured us the Ciaran Path was as hard the granite itself and he rode it every week so he was therefore also rock hard. After making sure we knew just how hard-as-nails the path was he rode off leaving us to ponder before setting off.

The Ciaran path is indeed a great bit of trail. I really enjoyed the steep , loose rocky sections and bedrock features and most of it turned out to be challenging but OK. There were a couple of sections that are definitely a step up, and require a lot of skill and confidence. I left these so I would have something to do next time. The path is very scenic, as it falls and rises through old woodland with amazing streams and waterfalls all the way to Kinlochleven.

After a quick coffee at the Ice Factor, we reluctantly started on the 500m climb back to the Devil’s Staircase. Elizabeth claimed this to be “The Fire Road of Doom”, and I think it might well be. In sweltering (for Scotland) sunshine we struggled up the loose rocky track back to where we had turned off for the dam many hours ago. Some hike-a-bike later we were back at the top of the Devil’s Staircase. Barry had cracked into his super caffeinated extreme energy gels, and for a brief 5 minutes set about riding up the steep rocky trail like a man possessed. Even though the climb was tough we had an amazing back drop to the Mamores and Ben Nevis. The Devil’s Staircase descent was great fun, and I think the Ciaran Path had toughened us up as it didn’t seem as bad as it looked on the way up.

This was a great day out and I would do it again. The route is tough as it combines hard climbs and hard descents but the quality of the trails and scenery is first rate. Thanks to Barry, Elizabeth and Ieva for a great day out. Ieva gets a special award for managing this rock-fest on a hardtail!

Tom

 

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One Comment

  1. Good stuff Tom & gang, looks like you had some fun.
    I left around 12ish so was around an hour or so behind you, I made a last minute decision to head up. Great scenery, weather and riding, grand day out! I have some shots I’ll try and post up.

    D

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