IT hasn’t been the driest month on record and it’s always disappointing to suffer a wet summer, but despite having spent a good few damp days on the hills around Loch Quoich in Glen Garry I’m still convinced this is one of the finest hill-hiking areas in Scotland.

This mountainous region has the distinction of being one of the wettest places in Scotland. In December 1954, 10 inches of rain fell in a 22-hour period and the annual average is in the region of 135 inches. It was this level of rainfall that encouraged the North of Scotland Hydro-Electric Board to harness the waters of Loch Quoich for its Glen Garry hydro-electricity project.

The scheme was completed in 1962 and by raising the waters of the loch by 100 feet they drowned the former village of Kinlochquoich. Before the clearances of the late 18th century, there were scattered townships all around the shores of Loch Quoich and settlements lined the fringes of the loch where there was reliable grazing land and good fishing. Today not a lazybed, the “feannagan” of the Gael, exists. Instead a gravel tidemark and a dam at the eastern end of the loch betrays its industrial reincarnation.

The slopes of four Munros and a Corbett trundle their way steeply down into Loch Quoich. The long line of the South Glen Shiel ridge is a stone’s throw away and the region encroaches on the Rough Bounds of Knoydart, the Garbh-Chriochan of the Gael. Gleouraich and Spidean Mialach are the big hitters, while Gairich rises steeply to its 919 metre summit on the south side of Loch Quoich. The fourth Munro, Sgurr a’ Mhaoraich, lies close to the long fjord-like Loch Hourn, and translates as the peak of the shellfish.

Tongue-twisting as they may be to pronounce, Gleouraich, 3396ft/1035m, and Spidean Mialach, 3268ft/996m, just north of Loch Quoich, are popular hills, and not without good reason. Superb stalkers’ paths carry you quickly and easily on to the summits. Both hills have several great corries biting into their steep flanks from the north and the walker, traversing both hills, can admire them from best advantage. Snow cornices normally lie deep into the early summer and the views north to the Glen Shiel hills are particularly fine.

A small cairn on the west side of the Allt Coire Peitireach, close to the road, indicates the beginning of what soon turns out to be one of those magnificent hill highways that carry you from the lower slopes with ease. The path weaves its way efficiently across a grassy spur and then eases its way uphill and along the steep edge of Gleouraich’s south-west ridge. It stops abruptly at the foot of the final steep rise to Gleouraich’s summit. Either the shooters who had the path built didn’t fancy the steep climb or else they had no desire to visit the top. A rougher, unmaintained hikers’ path continues to the cairn.

From the summit, the route to Spidean Mialach follows the rim of several huge corries that fall away to the north in spectacular fashion. There is a considerable drop between the two Munro summits, but there is plenty of interest. From the summit of Spidean Mialach continue in a south-east direction for a while before dropping down an obvious spur towards Loch Fearna. From the small saddle above the loch make your way across Coire Mheil to pick up another stalkers’ path on the west side of the burn, a path which can then be followed back to the road near the starting point. Avoid, if you can, the new hydro track.

I doubt if you’ll ever find a better hill path than the one to the top of Gleouraich. With an arm of Loch Quoich hundreds of metres below your feet, the view along the length of the main part of the loch is majestic, with the rest of Knoydart’s big hills, Sgurr na Ciche, Luinne Bheinn, Meall Buidhe and Beinn Aden, all clearly visible. The condition of this old path deteriorated badly a few years ago, “mainly due to damage to the drainage system, with water running on it almost from top to bottom”, according to the estate manager Lea MacNally.

When I was editor of The Great Outdoors magazine, Lea wrote to me having read of my fondness for these hills, and asked for help in organising a “maintenance weekend”. The idea was that we’d encourage as many of our readers as possible to form a work party to carry out repairs to the path’s drainage system. The volunteers were joined by estate staff and local folk and a buffet supper was laid on for the Saturday evening. It was a hugely worthwhile event – the track got some essential maintenance and everyone had a great time.

It’s therefore mildly ironic that within a couple of miles of one of Scotland’s finest mountain footpaths lies one of the worst. At the eastern end of Loch Quoich, just south of its dam, another footpath gives access to the Druim na Geid Salaich, a long, rising ridge that in turn gives access to the Munro of Gairich.

The boggy, rutted, poorly drained and badly eroded nature of this path shouldn’t really surprise anyone given the recorded rainfall for the area. Gairich, 3015ft/919m, stands in splendid isolation on the south side of the loch, and two or three years ago the Celtic winter god Biera got her act together, flourished her icy wand and enveloped much of the highlands in a smattering of snow and freezing cold temperatures. I hoped the hill’s notoriously boggy approaches would form a deep-frozen highway.

A pale sun shone from a milky, creamy sky as I set out but despite the low temperatures underfoot conditions were not ideal – the rainwater that had previously flooded the path had turned to ice. I might have been better with ice skates so I left the slippery path after half a mile or so, and took a more direct route, over crisp, crunchy frozen turf, on to the Druim na Geid Salaich.

Once I reached the crest of the ridge overhead conditions dramatically improved too. Great streaks of blue sky appeared through the high cloud and the sun broke through – the first I’d seen in weeks. Away ahead of me I could see other climbers on the sharply defined east ridge of Gairich and beyond lay the jumbled hills of Knoydart.

As the ridge widens out onto the Bac nam Foid it usually becomes increasingly boggy and cut up by peat hags, but a couple of inches of fresh snow lay on top of old neve, hard snow that has frozen and thawed several times, and it was a delight to walk on it.

Soon I was climbing up through rocky outcrops and crags, avoiding the icy sections as much as possible. Various tracks cross the south-east slopes of this hill and it’s easy to follow them too far west, but by keeping on a rising traverse as close to the crest as possible I managed to pick a line through the difficulties to the surprisingly broad summit ridge and cairn.

The cold was intense but the views were magnificent, the white crests of the hills rising from russet flanks. I could see the Cuillin of Skye, I could see Ben Nevis crouching over its acolytes, but best of all were the Knoydart hills – wild Scotland in all her magnificent glory.