Beinn Eighe (East)

Monday 29th August 2016

When I last drove up to Scotland for a walking holiday, in 2010, I stopped in Torridon with the aim of climbing one of the giants of Torridon, Beinn Eighe, however this coincided with bad weather so I descended as soon as I had reached the ridge of this vast mountain, near the Munro Spidean Coire nan Clach. Once I made the decision to take my car to Scotland this time, I immediately thought that I wanted to return to Torridon in order to climb Beinn Eighe in, hopefully, better weather. The day before this walk I’d enjoyed good weather, but unfortunately for this walk the weather had deteriorated. After driving from Ratagan Youth Hostel, where I had spent the night, I parked in the village of Kinlochewe and set off in weather that didn’t seem too bad, however I knew that the weather was forecast to worsen later in the day. Rather than repeating the walk that I’d attempted six years ago I was going to do the walk that in Ralph Storer’s seminal guidebook, “100 Best Routes on Scottish Mountains”, is titled Beinn Eighe (East). This walk involves a circuit of Coire Domhain including a traverse of the fearsome pinnacles of Bodaich Dubh, the Black Carls, however I was reassured by Ralph Storer that there is “a path that avoids any insurmountable difficulties if necessary”.

The walk started well as I passed through the beautifully wild surroundings of the Beinn Eighe National Nature Reserve with heather and devil’s bit scabious covering the ground below many small trees that were attempting to establish themselves in this windy, exposed valley. Ahead of me the white stone topped peaks of the eastern end of Beinn Eighe stood proudly, beckoning me on and after swinging right to come alongside the Allt a’Chuirn the Black Carls themselves tauntingly came into view. I had an enjoyable walk on an excellent path that took me through the heather moor while the striking mountain ahead lured me on. The climb became a little more interesting when I had to scramble down to a lovely stream beside a waterfall, and after fording that I scrambled back up the bank onto a delightfully narrow ridge that widened with shifting stones underfoot which made for unpleasant walking. It is difficult to get a grip on stony paths like this as it can be like walking on sand, so eventually I veered off the path towards my right hand side of the ridge above the stream that I had crossed earlier.

I could see a clear path climbing the rock wall ahead, but the stony path I was on wasn’t going in that direction, rather towards a seemingly dead end, so I felt justified in following a line of cairns to the right of the ridge that led me all the way up to this excellent path. My way climbed the steep, rocky terrain near to the stream until eventually I turned left to climb steep scree up to the top of a narrow, steep ridge with vertiginous views into Coire Domhain below and up to Sgurr nan Fhir Duibhe, the highest point on this circuit. There was a very cold wind blowing on this exposed ridge that forced me to don my waterproofs before climbing the stony ridge towards the ominous clouds that lay around the summit of the mountain. The abundant rock and strong, cold wind made this climb feel very mountainous, especially when compared with the good weather climbs that I had made in the Cairngorms three months before. It is usually very windy and cold at the top of a mountain so when the weather is not like that it feels odd, and not quite right, even though it is great to be at the top of a mountain in good weather. On this walk the weather felt properly mountainous and I had to battle against both the weather and the gradient until eventually I reached the top of Creag Dhubh.

I had fantastic views north towards Slioch and the Great Wilderness, but towards the heart of Beinn Eighe it seemed very dark and ominous with both the Munros enveloped in cloud. Resolutely I headed off along the ridge towards the Black Carls where, bizarrely, there was hardly any wind passing over an unnamed 929 metre top and to the start of the jagged peaks. Ralph Storer’s assurance that there is a bypass path constantly played through my mind as I approached the impenetrable-looking pinnacles, but once I got there I couldn’t find it. I made an exploratory expedition but I soon started to have difficulties that forced me to turn back until I could make another attempt, but that also proved futile. I don’t have a great head for heads and as I clambered around the rocks the clouds began to descend, which made route-finding even more difficult. In the end I had to return to the start of the Black Carls where I admitted defeat and accepted that I was going to have to descend the way that I had come. In mountain walking one must always be prepared to abandon the walk and turn back if the weather or the terrain demands it.

On the reassuringly flat ridge to Creag Dhubh I stopped, relaxed, caught my breath back and had my lunch. After eating I started my descent and was once again I was blasted by the same strong, cold winds that had whipped up at me during my ascent. At the foot of the scree, in Leathad Buidhe, I stopped for a rest to absorb the awesome rock scenery, and while watching a pair of ptarmigan I thought I could feel a few drops of rain so I put on all my waterproofs even though it didn’t actually start raining until much later in the day. Ironically during my descent I noticed that the clouds had lifted again from around the Black Carls, but it wasn’t really the weather that had stopped me on this occasion. The giants of Torridon terrified me when I was first visited them in 2009 as I am not good with heights, and this is what ultimately turned me back. If I had been able to find the bypass path I may have been able to have completed the walk as planned, but I enjoyed the climb up the dramatic-looking mountain and now I got to do that same path again with the views east ahead of me. I prefer to look on the positives of this walk and I loved being in the great rock landscape around Creag Dhubh with the tremendous views north. Creag Dhubh may not even qualify as a Munro Top (it is lower than the unnamed 929 metre top, which is also not a Munro Top), but to me on this walk it was as great a mountain as any.