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Occasionally, when we walk up or down a mountain, we chat about so called "hill madness". It's a kind of illness with multiple names: Munro-craziness, mountain-obsession, hill-bug, climbing-addiction, etc... I think in our hillwalking careeres, we have all been there at some point, wondering: am I just plain mad or totally bonkers?
We had a moment like that last Sunday on the ridge of Beinn Dearg. Kevin just looked at me with his I-Always-Know-It-Best expression and said:
"To do what we are now doing, you don't have to be mad... but it certainly helps!"
He was referring to the technical difficulty of the route we picked (most of which can be avoided of course!) rather than the time/distance of the walk. Beinn Dearg (the Torridon one) can be comfortably traversed in a single day walk. Having now done it twice I feel a bit like a Beinn Dearg expert
so bear with me please if this report sounds more like bragging than telling a story
Our first encounter with BD was in
September 2014 when we spent 8.5 hours traversing this Corbett. Back then we called it "that F*** Corbett behind Liathach" where the F word could be: fantastic, fascinating or fabulous, but also frightening, frustrating or even ferocious, in the sense that it seems cruel, wild, untamed. In my head, some mountains have gender (I don't know why, some just feel like they are male or female) and Beinn Dearg is definitely MALE. And the worst kind of male: a brute. He makes you sweat and swear when you attack the traverse. It's more like He attacks You. He's a nasty piece of work, the Red Mountain. A hill born BAD.
So having done it once, why would we want to go back, you might ask. Why face the brute again if there are so many much gentler hills nearby? Beinn Alligin, despite the easy scrambling on the Horns, is a sweet gentle girl compare to Beinn Dearg. Baosbheinn and Beinn an Eun are just a bit longer walking expeditions but no scrambling required, just nice ridges with superb views. Beinn Eighe has a bunch of routes and most are easier than BD. Apart from Liathach and it's pinnacles, nothing else in Torridon area compares to this F*** Corbett!!! Yet we still went back. Why??? I don't know. Kevin is right - we ARE mad
WH route goes up the western end of the hill and then returns the same way. This is the only way to avoid the steep wall on the eastern side, traversing which involves scrambling down several chimneys, not easy in descent. I remember that Malcolm and Jackie reversed the route and went up the steep wall, which makes more sense as the vertical sections have good foot-and handholds so are much easier when tackled in ascent. But of course, we are totally bananas, so we went against the logic (my inner Mr Spock must be on quarantine, as he didn't warn me
). Ended up spending 9 hours scrambling all over the F*** Corbett but hey, it was probably the best day we had on the hills since the covid crisis started!
The car park for Beinn Alligin is not a big one and we witnessed the previous weekend, how busy Torridon is these days, so we were up early to get to the starting point early enough and find a parking spot before the Alligin climbers arrive. We were in such a hurry packing up, that Kevin forgot his camera. So today's photos were all done with my compact Canon IXUS 185 and Kevin's mobile phone - apologies if quality of some of them is not as good as in my other reports.
Facing the menace: Black Panther on the bridge over Abhainn Coire Mhic Nobuil:
Weather was good today: low winds and sunny, with some high cloud expected in the afternoon. We hoped for good views from higher ground. Last time, we saw very little from the ridge of Beinn Dearg due to horrendous haze, maybe the second time lucky?
Near the second bridge, with the F*** Corbett in the background. Notice my hat and gloves - the morning was very cold!
The path is very good as long as it aims for the Horns of Alligin. As soon as we took the right branch aiming between Alligin and Beinn Dearg, it deteriorated into a mixture of bog-and rock-hopping. I studied the north side of the Horns, looking for a potential alternative route up, maybe we could try something up this side:
Crossing Allt a' Bhealaich didn't prove difficult...
...but what lay beneath, only time would tell:
Actually, we knew exactly what lay in front of us as we had been here before and in similar conditions/time of year, so the rocky, brutally steep western end of Beinn Dearg didn't scare us, quite the opposite - we were ready for the challenge!
The easiest line of ascent it up the shallow gully in the middle of the photo, this avoids all difficulties, but it is very wet and slippery in places. We preferred to go up the left-hand side, where some interesting rock formations provided good opportunities for scrambling.
Initially, it's just steep with lots of small, wobbly stones:
...but after the first 100m, it gets serious!
A little pano from Kevin's phone, showing Bein Alligin, Baosbheinn and Beinn an Eun:
For the next couple of hundred meters, we picked as hard a line as possible, just trying to make it difficult for ourselves. A couple of times we had to climb back a few steps, if rocks were unstable or the ground too slippery, but generally we made good progress.
Looking down (gulp!) with the northern side of the Horns in the background:
We were close to the easier section in the middle of the slope and I was scrambling up a small obstacle, when I felt the rock under my foot giving away. My other foot was in the air and the only foothold I could spot was at the height of my knee, so to save myself, I wedged my knee into that hold before my other leg lost its footing entirely. Thankfully, I had good handholds for both hands so I stayed in place, kneeling in a strange position for a few seconds, before I found a stable step with my other foot. I clambered up the rest of the wall and little did I realize, that the next day I'd have a nice, purple bruise on my knee. Funny, it didn't even hurt, just the pressure put on the soft tissue caused it to bruise.
Puffing out the adrenaline on the upper slopes of Beinn Dearg:
The upper half of the steep slope is slightly easier and yes, there is a path! Not many people face the F*** Corbett, but it must be more popular now, if a path has appeared. We didn't follow it exactly, because we spotted more scrambling opportunities:
The path is very eroded anyway and would be a huge knee-jerker in descent - one reason why Kevin prefers to go up this side!
The final bit of rock-hopping before getting to a flatter section:
At about 750m, the ridge evens out, before the final 100m of ascent to the western top, Stuc Loch na Cabhaig. But before the last effort to reach the western top, we stopped for a short breather - and a photo session!
"You don't have to be mad to climb Beinn Dearg - but it certainly helps!"
The last 100m to Stuc Loch na Cabhaig now looked benign, but one can make it as easy or as hard as they wish:
The Cuillin ridge:
Baosbheinn and the two lochs: Loch a'Bhealaich and Loch na h-Oidhche:
The Horns of Alligin:
A couple of panoramas:
I was so glad we got better views this time, as they are sensational, especially back to Beinn Alligin. And we knew the best was yet to come in the shape of the eastern vistas including Liathach and Beinn Eighe.
But before that, Panther smelled another chance for easy scrambling!
An obvious path traverses below the crest but I didn't use it at all, just wanted more fun with giant lego blocks!
Arriving on the summit of Stuc Loch na Cabhaig was like a revelation... So much more to see and photograph! The top was cold but we were so pumped up with adrenaline that we didn't notice it first.
Posing with Beinn Eighe behind me:
Lucy - the only debutante on Beinn Dearg:
360 degrees pano:
The rest of the ridge to walk plus Liathach:
The high cloud combined with a slight haze created a strange "misty" effect on more distant hills:
A small outlying top if you fancy posing in an awkward spot:
We are mad, mad people...On a bad, bad mountain...
After a quick refreshment break (we noticed the cold breeze eventually!) we carried on to the main summit of Beinn Dearg. This requires dropping about 70m to a bealach, then re-ascending up a rocky slope to the 914m top. There is an obvious path all the way, a few rocky steps en route but nothing too technical:
On the way up to the summit I had more fun with giant lego block, trying to avoid the path all and pick a more ambitious line of approach:
This is the kind of terrain you will encounter everywhere on Beinn Dearg: lots of red sandstone, very grippy for scrambling but also knee-bruising if you're not careful. I was far from careful
Looking back at the western top:
View south with the Cuillin ridge to the right and Beinn Damph to the left:
Just below the summit, the path skirts around a small rocky tower, we went straight up the rocks (easy scramble) which felt safer than an exposed bypass. On the summit plateau, we found several pancake-like structures, so similar to those we had seen on Ben More Coigach:
Summit cairn in sight!
