Exploring Quinag: Creag an Spardain (northern end)
Creag an Spardain is the western wall of a steep-sided wooded valley housing the burn, Allt Creag an Spardain, that drains Loch Unapool (NC2232). This burn forms the boundary between the Quinag estate to the west and land owned by Jim Sloane to the east. The ecological interest of the valley, as unspoiled ‘temperate rainforest,’ has been recognised since the 1970s, and it lies on the eastern edge of the Ardvar Woodlands SSSI.
An account of a previous visit to the upper part of the valley, on 31st August 2023, may be found under Exploring Quinag: Atlantic Woodland at Creag an Spardain. On that occasion, the sheer effort of negotiating the heavily-vegetated boulder-scree along the course of the burn stopped us reaching its mouth. However, Romany Garnett assured us that it was possible, if not easy, to access this area through the cliff woodland to its west (photo 1).
Cliff woodland
So, on 29th September 2024, having had a good look at the rocky beach (see Exploring Quinag: the shore at Torgawn), we made our way to the start of the wooded promontory to its east (map – photo 2, photo 3). Had the tide been really low, we might have tried to get around by the shore, but it wasn’t, so we followed deer paths along the upper edge of the woodland, which is dominated by downy birch.
Shortly after entering the woodland, we found a large, bright scarlet, fruiting body of the well-known fly agaric Amanita muscaria (photo 4), a mycorrhizal associate of birch. It was all the more striking because its cap bore very few of the usual white warts. Despite its familiarity, and accounts of its use by the Sami people of northern Scandinavia as a hallucinogen, it should always be ‘treated as deadly poisonous’ (Roger Phillips Mushrooms 2006, p.140).
A little further to the east we came across an open area, with splendid views across the sea-loch towards the Kylesku Bridge (photo 5), which provided a good spot for lunch. The canopy contained occasional rowans covered with clusters of red berries, and more fertile damper areas of ground provided suitable habitat for primrose and yellow pimpernel, and presumably also earthworms, since there were frequent badger snuffle holes.
Down to the shoreline
Shortly after we had crossed the boundary line into our target square (NC2232), the deer path we were following dropped down very steeply through large tumbled boulder scree. At that point, not wanting to return, with the shoreline in sight below us, we were forced to slide down, very carefully, on our backsides.
There were scattered old hazels smothered with tree lungwort Lobaria pulmonaria and other members of the Lobarion community of temperate rainforest lichens (photo 6). As sometimes happens in such sheltered humid areas, the tree lungwort also extended as a carpet across mossy boulders (photo 7).
Reminders of the time of year were provided by scattered, very large, white gill fungi, in grassy pockets, probably the giant funnel Leucopaxillus giganteus (photo 8), and also two edible species, chanterelles Cantharellus cibarius and wood hedgehogs Hydnum repandum, which Gwen gathered to eat later.
Ferns also came into their own as we threaded our way through the boulders, with carpets of the tiny fronds of Wilson’s filmy-fern, interlaced in places through miniature forests of upright grey-green lichens, probably Cladonia rangiformis (photo 9). There were also creeping plants of common polypody, rosettes of hard fern, and sprouting out of damp crevices, the larger fronds, grouped in shuttlecocks, of golden-scaled male-fern Dryopteris affinis and northern buckler-fern D. expansa.
Woodland species, as we approached the mouth of the burn (photo 10), included creeping soft-grass, great wood-rush and hedge woundwort. There was, rather curiously, also common nettle, which is not often found so far from human habitation. It had perhaps been introduced by sheep, which were once much more numerous in this area; this would also account for the stout drystone walls built along the shoreline and up the eastern side of the gorge.
Casting around and finding our way back
There are some special plants in the area to the west of the mouth of this burn, including one of only two stands in Assynt (and West Sutherland as a whole) of the wood fescue Festuca altissima, which Ian had seen here back in the 1990s. We clambered up the boulder scree to the foot of a vertical crag where we thought, from a historical six-figure grid reference (pre-gps), that it ought to occur, but were unable to re-locate it (a task for the next generation of botanists).
We did find sanicle, valerian and locally frequent water avens, but in the end the terrain again defeated us, and we retreated to the bottom of the gorge (photo 11). Crossing over, we were able to reach the top of a low cliff on the eastern side and climb, slowly, back up a steep hill parallel to the gorge (photo 12).
This gave us good views of some aspens high on the Creag itself (photo 13), which were beginning to colour up. We eventually, and thankfully, reached level ground beside the upper reaches of the burn, crossed over and made our way across wet moorland back to the road.
Beside some small rocky pools on the moorland there were numerous red grouse droppings (photo 14), evidence of their continued presence on this part of Quinag, in modest numbers. Beside them were brownish-purple patches of the leathery terrestrial cyanobacterium mountain dulse Gloeocapsa magna, which is a feature of stony areas on our hills (photo 15).
Its vernacular name is presumably based on a vague resemblance to the edible red alga dulse Palmaria palmata. Curiously, ‘googling’ mountain dulse brings up a wealth of references to its ability to corrode and destroy fibreglass shingles impregnated with limestone, which are apparently a common roofing material in the USA and Canada.
Ian M. Evans and Gwen Richards