The Beinn Eighe Mountain Trail

Wednesday 31st August 2016

The last time that I was in Torridon I had attempted to climb Beinn Eighe, but was thwarted by high winds and poor weather. I came back to Torridon this year with the specific aim of completing that walk that I had been unable to do six years ago, but unfortunately bad weather prevented me from doing the walk again. I arrived in Torridon on the previous Monday when I attempted to walk around the tops at the eastern end of Beinn Eighe, and I hoped that I would later be able do a walk over the highest points on Beinn Eighe, the two Munros of Spidean Coire nan Clach and Ruadh-stac Mòr. This day was my last chance before moving on the following day so I was disappointed to wake up to awful weather with heavy rain that looked like it was set to stay for the rest of the day. Instead of climbing to the summit of Beinn Eighe I turned my attention to the Beinn Eighe National Nature Reserve, on the eastern slopes of the mountain. Driving through the horrible weather in Glen Torridon I reached the visitor centre near the village of Kinlochewe where the rain was still falling and the midges were having a feast on unsuspecting tourists. After a brief look around I decided to move on to the starting point for the reserve trails at a car park beside the shores of Loch Maree.

The Beinn Eighe National Nature Reserve was the first reserve to be established in Britain and I’d heard that there was a path in the reserve that is the only way-marked mountain trail in Britain. This had sounded intriguing and sparked my curiosity so on this wet weather day I thought it would make a good wet weather option. After picking up a leaflet for the mountain trail in the car park I headed off into the woods initially along the bank of the Allt na h-Airighe gradually climbing past tall purple-flowering heather and dense bracken with an abundance of moss everywhere. Astonishingly the rain had stopped and the sun was beginning to come out, which added to an enjoyable walk as I followed the clear path that began to climb steeply up the hillside past scots pines. After crossing another burn, the Alltan Mhic Eoghainn, the path steepened even more and rock began to cover the ground underfoot further enhancing this delicious walk.

I had great views across the valley to the other side of Loch Maree where Slioch and the mountains on the other side of the deep ravine of Gleann Bianasdail were blinking in the newly emerged sunlight. I was still relatively low so I didn’t have far reaching views, but the rocky ground underfoot made me feel like I was on top of a high mountain. Quartzite, such as is found at the top of Beinn Eighe and not usually at this low level, covered the ground and made for a fun walk as the way-marked path weaved steeply through the gorgeous rock landscape. Even though this walk ultimately doesn’t climb very high, this surprising abundance of mountain-top rocks was making this walk feel like a real mountain walk and I loved every moment of it. Eventually the path started to level off and cold winds forced me to wrap up warm for the next stage of the walk across the mountain-top-like traverse through the rocky terrain until I finally reached the summit of the walk, at the top of Leathad Buidhe where the view west suddenly revealed itself in astounding clarity.

Beinn Eighe was arrayed before me mostly clear of cloud with the eastern peaks of the mountain looking fabulous from this great vantage point. Creag Dhubh, which I’d climb two days previously, was on the left with Ruadh-stac Beag on the right while Sgurr Ban and the Munro, Spidean Coire nan Clach, lay at the far end of the corrie. This was a fabulous sight and made me long to be able to climb those mountains one day in good weather, unfortunately on this walk the rain had already started to fall again. I felt fortunate to have such a good view of Beinn Eighe on this walk despite the poor weather and lingered at the top for as long as I could to take in the view until eventually the cold and descending cloud on Beinn Eighe forced me to resume my walk along the mountain trail. Ahead of me was Meall a’ Ghiubhais whose rocks are darker, brown rather than grey, than those on Beinn Eighe due to a major earth movement that had shoved the older Torridonian sandstones on top of the younger Cambrian quartzites, which was why I had been able to enjoy a mountain-top walk on quartzite during my climb.

After passing passing Loch Allt an Daraich and Lunar Loch, the path begins to descend once again through what I thought of as less interesting scenery with less rock and more heather and devil’s bit scabious, which is the norm on mountain slopes at this height. The path follows a stream called simply An t-allt, the burn, into a deep ravine that provides enough shelter from the wind to enable relatively thick vegetation to grow in that area. With the rain continuing to fall quite heavily by this time and low cloud everywhere I made my way down the path quite unfazed by the weather. A spectacular gorge was passed before eventually I plunged once more into the wood and finally reaching the car park at the bottom of the path beside the shore of Loch Maree. This was a great, though short walk, where I had lingered on the trail, taking my time to stop and read the trail guide to get a better appreciation of my surroundings. When I’d started I’d thought that I’d be able to do some more walking afterwards, but since I didn’t reach the bottom until three o‘clock I decided to call it a day there. I had had so much fun on the climb through the mountain-top-like quartzite rocks that I didn’t feel as if I needed to do anything else. This walk had truly felt like a mountain trail even though it doesn’t climb to the top of a mountain.