Stac Pollaidh

Friday 4th June 2010

I continued with my negative frame of mind following my ascent of An Teallach the previous day, so I wasn’t in the mood for going up a mountain which meant I was unsure where I would go for a walk. I had seen a leaflet in the youth hostel in Ullapool for the local nature reserve of Knockan Crag so I decided that I would visit that before deciding where to go. Knockan Crag is a site of great importance to geologists where Moine Schists are to be found on top of the younger rocks of Durness Limestone. It was research done at this site that led to the development of the theory of tectonic shift. After a relaxing and informative walk around the site I returned to my car and drove a short distance onto a side road where I started to walk towards Ben Mór Coigach. However, after just a short walk along the road I turned back, put off by the prospect of walking along an indistinct, boggy path to an inconsequential mountain. I’m sure Ben Mór Coigach is a great mountain but I was not in the mood for a difficult walk across seldom visited terrain. Instead I drove to the foot of the nearby, much more popular, Stac Pollaidh and walked up the manufactured path that circles round the back of the castellated hill before climbing to the lowest point on the summit ridge.

Stac Polly is an astonishing little mountain of shattered rock and soaring sandstone pinnacles. I started my exploration of the hill on the seldom visited, lower, eastern tops, where I enjoyed lunch on my own on the easternmost top, while gazing across the lochan scattered terrain north towards the awesome Suilven. On returning to the col I tried scrambling up the many western tops, but they are so difficult to climb, and there are so many, that I eventually got fed up of the futile effort. I'd reached the 610m cairn by this point but not the final, highest peak, which requires a rock climb. After allowing another Torridonian Sandstone mountain to get the better of me I descended the steep gully that is just before the highest peak, and returned to the perimeter path, dropping back down to the road and my car. This is a fine mountain even if it’s not much more two thousand feet high, but I would appreciate it if it was a little easier to reach the top! Incidentally since Stac Polly requires a rock climb to reach the summit it is a member of a small, select group of mountains in Britain that can’t be walked up. Tryfan in Wales, Helm Crag in the Lake District, and the Cuillin on the Isle of Skye are the only other peaks in Britain that are impregnable to mere walkers. 

Leaving Stac Pollaidh behind I drove towards the small fishing town of Lochinver along a road that is described by Wainwright as the mad little road of Sutherland. In describing it he said that it is “a tortuous journey of ups and downs and ins and outs through a tangled landscape of low hillocks, gneiss outcrops, peat bogs and small lochans that lap the roadside verges, furnished with occasional clumps of trees and bordered by heather and gorse: an undisciplined maze yet endowed with infinite beauty.” He was so right, the road was an utterly exciting drive, particularly near Loch an Eig-bachaidh where the road hugs the edge of the bay with high cliffs on one side and the sea on the other side of the car-width road. Eventually I arrived in the lovely town of Lochinver where I stopped to explore and buy my dinner, and it wasn't long before it started to rain and thunder, which prompting me to be feel that I was lucky not to be walking in that weather. From Lochinver I drove to the nearby Achmelvich Beach Youth Hostel, which is set in beautiful, tranquil surroundings. The bay was so picturesque that I couldn’t help going out and taking some picturesm despite the risk of more rain. This area was the perfect antidote to the melancholy that had recently taken hold of me.