Beinn Mhor

Monday 4th and Wednesday 6th July 2011 

After a fabulous weekend spent in the awesome hills of Harris I walked back to the main road and caught a bus north to the Isle of Lewis. Despite the sunny weather I didn’t have much of a walk planned; instead once I reached Stornoway I caught another bus to Callanish to visit the Callanish Standing Stones. These five thousand year old stones are an impressive sight particularly in their location on the western coast of the largely deserted and flat, boggy terrain of the Isle of Lewis. After spending several hours exploring the various standing stones in the area I returned to Stornoway where I spent the night. I had considered doing a walk the next day up to the Butt of Lewis, the northernmost point of the island, but the hostel I was staying in was unable to accommodate me for another night. So after spending the morning looking at the famous Lewis Chessmen in the Lewis Museum I caught a bus south through Harris to the port of Leverburgh. After a short ferry crossing I arrived on the small island of Berneray where several buses took me south through North Uist and Benbecula to South Uist. After a wet arrival in South Uist I had hoped for dryer weather the next day when I wanted to tackle the highest hill in Uist and when I got up the weather looked good as the tops were clear and it wasn't raining, so despite a poor weather forecast I set off. A short walk down the road from Howmore, where I was staying, brought me to just after the bridge over the Abhainn Roag where I took a landrover track across the moor. This soon ended and I ventured across the grass and heather moor towards the grassy dome of Maola Breac. As the terrain became rockier and the ridge narrowed I veered towards the main peak until eventually I reached the northwest top of Beinn Mhor.

By now I was completely engulfed in clouds and the rain that had been promised was pouring down. Carefully I made my way along the ridge as it narrowed interestingly, however the wet and windy conditions prevented me from taking full advantage of the terrain. Instead I kept on a lower path that keeps below the summit ridge all the way to the trig point at the summit. There I had my lunch crouched in the wind shelter that encircles the trig point. In good weather I’m sure the top of Beinn Mhor is an amazing place with awesome views all over the Uists, north and south along the length of the isles, and across the western machair plains to the rugged eastern slopes. It is the eastern view that I most missed as without it I didn’t really get a good appreciation of the attraction of the hills of Uist. I had originally planned on following Ralph Storer’s guidebook over the lower hills of Ben Corrodale and Hecla but in view of the weather I turned around and descended the way I had come. 

Back on the road, since the rain had stopped, I decided to walk several miles north along the road until I reached the community of Stilligarry where I turned left onto a side road that goes to the beach. This track crosses the machair, the flat expanse of semi-fertile grassland that dominates the western side of Uist. At this time of the year the machair, where not farmed, is full of wild flowers that offer a spectacular display and compensated for the disappointments of my walk up Beinn Mhor. Lewis had held little interest for me since has few hills and is mostly flat marshland that is in stark contrast to its neighbour, the isle of Harris. I was quick to put Uist in the same category as Lewis but I have a feeling that would be a gross injustice. In the few days that I spent in Uist I wasn’t able to take in even a small part of the islands, and that which I saw was not in the best of weather. From the map, the best part of Uist must be the uninhabited eastern slopes of Beinn Mhor which I never saw because of the clouds. I’m sure better conditions would have allowed the wonders of Uist to have been better displayed.