KYQ4: Beinn Eighe

Triple Buttress from Ruadh-stac Mor

Monday, 7 May 2012

Distance: 17 kilometres

Ascent: 1220 metres

Total Time: 6 hours 2 minutes

m Ruadh-stac Mor 1010m 3hrs 20mins

m Spidean Coire nan Clach 993m 4hrs 42mins

After a cold night on the National Nature Reserve campsite at Taagan by Kinlochewe, we packed our gear and grazed on the remains of the food box in the freezing morning sunshine. With the weather set to close in tomorrow and the need for the others to return home, we made plans and chose to climb Beinn Eighe, one of my favourite hills not least because of the chance to visit the splendid Coire Mhic Fhearchair with its backdrop of the triple buttresses. I had climbed it twice along with Liathach and once with Slioch and once with Beinn Alligin during previous Munro rounds. Long before I had started climbing Munros I had also completed a complete traverse of the mountain from Kinlochewe. Today was to be a lazy day with the chance to be down by mid-afternoon.

We gave a lift to a 75-year-old walker from mid-Wales who was also camping at Taagan. He had just spent a week renovating the Shenaval bothy in a working party with the Mountain Bothy Association. He had that desire to put back as a volunteer all the support that the mountains had given him. He had walked out to Kinlochewe and then climbed Slioch before pitching up at Taagan. We dropped him by Loch Clair to walk through the Coulags Pass to the railway halt at Craig for his return trip home.

We shuffled the cars into position so we could walk into Coire Mhic Fhearchair, climb the Beinn Eighe Munros and then descend to one of the cars. The walk into the heart of Torridon is on an easy well-engineered path up Coire Dubh Mor. It was a chance for long conversations with the 4 people I have walked most with over the past 22 years of fairly serious hill walking. We were amused as we overtook a party of a dozen or so young May Bank holiday walkers from the home counties. They were laden with massive rucksacks carrying items of gear that only city slickers seem to believe are necessary.

The path around to the corrie was longer than I had remembered but the final 100 metres of ascent is a stairway to heaven as it opens into Coire Mhic Fhearchair. Unfortunately, mid-morning is not the best time to view the triple buttresses in all their glory, the light is in the wrong direction to reveal the splendid rock faces that are the backcloth of this amazing amphitheatre. We took a break on the lip of the rock platform and then followed the west rocky lip of the crystal clear lochan, parts of the crashed Avro Lancaster Bomber were easily visible. We continued under the triple buttresses through a boulder field until we reached the steep slopes that lead ever upwards to the main ridge above. We were entertained by a female Ptarmigan who took us on a tour of the rock formations and, presumably, away from her nest.

We elected to strike directly upwards for the summit ridge of Ruadh-stac Mor. The slope is unrelenting but no more so than the path that leads up through a loose gully in the southeast corner of the corrie. Arriving on the ridge we were met by a panorama of colour-coordinated hills and sky, unfortunately, by midday, it was grey without any tinge of blue. We sat at the summit and were nevertheless impressed by the lineup of top mountains in the excellent visibility that had been a constant feature of the last four days. This was my sixth visit to Beinn Eighe, a mountain that you never tire of, it always inspires.

The walk over the main ridge is one of Scotland's finest ridge rambles and only the fact that we were heading towards Fionn Bheinn rather than Liathach, Scotland's best Munro, detracted from the walk but it did exercise my neck muscles. There had been a small landslide on the cut-off that leads to the main ridge but once on the main path the undulations are barely noticeable such are the quality of the views. We dallied on the summit of Spidean Coire nan Clach before Mark set off to complete the ridge whilst the rest of the party decided to drop down the screes to the path in the corrie below from where the path leads back to the wild car park.

The long weekend was over and the rest of the group headed back to the central belt via Inverness and the A9. I was working in Inverness for the rest of the week so I drove through the Torridons to Shieldaig where as a student in 1970 I had spent a week conducting a traffic survey for the new road to Applecross. I continued to Stromeferry to visit my brother in his new house which is perfectly located for Skye, Glenshiel and the Torridon mountains. We ate out at the excellent Carron restaurant to celebrate his forthcoming birthday. It restored my faith in Highland cuisine with home cooking, fresh local produce and modestly priced. A stark contrast to many Highland hotels, which more often than not have been disappointing on trips like this, that is if we managed to get down from the hills before they stopped serving food. The honourable exception has been the Cluanie Inn. We once walked into the empty bar at 9:45pm after three long hard days camping and climbing on snow-covered hills. The mountaineer chef took one look at us, poured us a couple of pints and reopened the kitchen to provide us with a very full plate of haggis, neaps and mash.

On the drive back to Inverness the next day I was able to reflect on the fifty or so outings, like the last four days, that I have enjoyed and sometimes suffered over the past 22 years. It was encouraging to realise that I can still do back-to-back walks of 8 or 9 hours. And for the first time, I had chosen to climb two Corbetts instead of a Munro, Slioch at that, which is a very good one. I am now about halfway to completing the Corbetts and, after years of toying with them, it seems that they have acquired the momentum that Munros always have once you get past the first hundred. So they will become an objective; as will the fifth round of Munros now that I seem to have reached the halfway mark.