Beinn a' Bheithir

Saturday 22nd July 2006

This was another good day marred by a long walk in and a long walk out, plus I was getting problems with my feet. To start I walked several miles to Ballachulish and from the south of the village followed a path onto the hillside. Soon I abandoned the path and headed uphill towards the eastern ridge of Sgorr Bhan on a path that slowly appeared through the heather leading up to the ridge. Further up, the path became more distinct as the terrain became rockier and once the ridge narrowed the path quickly became more interesting as  many scrambling opportunities presenting themselves. I was in heaven climbing up this ridge under a cool, cloudy sky, but with clear views all around.

Eventually the ridge levelled out and my scrambling fun was over leaving me with a stony walk to the summit of Sgorr Bhan. After lunch I proceeded down and around the perfect arc at the head of the valley with steep drops either side of the path and up to the first Munro, Sgorr Dhearg, a beautifully formed mountain capped with white quartzite stones. It was a magical place and I was reluctant to leave, but ahead of me was the second-half of Beinn a'Bheithir lying majestically before me. Although it is not as beautiful as its neighbour it is certainly more rugged with many crags. Descending to the deep bealach I climbed along the top of the ridge taking advantage of scrambling opportunities to reach the second Munro of the day, Sgorr Dhonuill.

After a pause to admire the view in the now bright sunshine I descended the other side of the mountain and rounded the top of Gleann a'Chaolais. Now I had a spot of difficulty; the guide book suggested descending a green gully, but all the gullies I could see were stone filled and therefore very tricky to descend. Eventually I picked a route descending in a precarious fashion steeply down to the head of the glen, at times sliding down the scree slope, not I may add without injury. Once at the bottom and bandaged I made my way to the left side of a young stream where a path was becoming clear.

This path led me into the forest that dominates the glen, delving deep into it, until I arrived at a forest road. I like woodland paths, because they are often well constructed in the way that they weave between the trees, undulating up and down with the terrain, constantly changing. But forest roads are deadly dull; they are wide, hard tracks that rarely change height cutting straight through the landscape with no variation and I had several miles of forest road ahead of me before I eventually emerged on the main road. Normally this would have been bad enough, but after bit of walking along the hard surface my feet began to complain.

My left ankle had started hurting the evening before and now it flared up again, but this time the balls of my feet were also starting to hurt. The latter, I'm sure, was due to the hard surface and worn out inner soles. The hard surface couldn't be helped but the inadequate soles could be patched until I was able to get new ones. Once my feet were properly bandaged I was finally able to get out of the forest and continue walking for more than an hour back to the youth hostel.