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Quick – must get this report out – noone’s written one yet for this hill! I can be first in something for a change!
Stats: 6 miles, 2277 feet of ascent, 3 and a quarter hours (including breaks Monty
)… Me and Richard on a quite wet and windy day…
On our last walking day of our week at Ullapool we were both feeling a bit “can’t be bothered” so decided we’d just go and do a single Sutherland Corbett. We couldn’t decide between doing Cul Mor or Beag - I felt it was still too windy for me to make much of Stac Pollaidh. As we couldn’t decide which to do (although I was thinking Cul Mor myself) we said we’d drive round there and see which was ‘out’ (of the cloud).
When we drove over the last rise and the hills came into view Cul Beag was out but Cul Mor had a stubborn little cloud hiding its summit. So, Cul Beag it was… I turned down the Coigach road and parked up at the foot of the recommended descent route from the SMC guidebook – but that was always the route I’d planned to do, even way back before reading any of the guide books. I remember seeing it when touring with my parents in their camping van and thinking what an easy little hill it looked from there and how spectacular it looked from the Stac Pollaidh side!
We booted up and hunted around for some kind of path – I was sure there must be something with it being a route mentioned in the guidebooks… All we could find was a tiny 3 rock cairn and a little scrape setting off from the roadside. Within 50 yards it had disappeared and we were just left with a squelch up the long, wet grass on rough and boggy ground. Still, it didn’t look far up to the top of that section so we just stuck by the burn and picked a way up it.
It didn’t take long to ascend to the skyline and we were soon in a corrie with crags on two sides – quite a good-looking spot – we’d even found a little path with boot marks in the mud following the burn! However, we soon left it and aimed left away from all the craggy stuff and continued up on grass towards another col. From here the ground became slightly more rocky and flattened out a bit.
![Cul Beag ascent - levelling out into corrie.jpg]()
- Looking back again...
We studied the summit peak and decided to go up the steep and rocky left-hand side – mainly because it had a few grassy bumps leading that way and getting progressively higher so broke the ascent up into small chunks… I thought it looked very steep but expected it to look less so when we arrived at the foot of the final climb.
There were quite a few ups and downs and we tried to skirt most of them and soon arrived at the foot of ‘the steep bit’. It didn’t look any less steep! We discussed a line up through the bits of small crag and set off up. More or less immediately we split up into two separate tracks – Richard went straight up and I went further left hoping it would get less steep sooner.
We arrived at the top of the section around the same time onto a shoulder above the crags where a spectacular view suddenly burst upon us. Stac Pollaidh lay just past a pretty little lochan and looked very like a ‘thumbs up’… I got my camera out and started roaming round the edge of the crags (not too near though as it was very windy again and blowing that way) taking pictures. The next part of the ascent was just past a gully and looked spectacularly rocky from our shoulder. There was a very simple and easy route up the back though.
![Cul Beag's summit fm shoulder.jpg]()
![Stac Pollaidh from Cul Beag.jpg]()
We promenaded around the edge of the crags ooo-ing and aah-ing – the views were great in all directions – some of the best mountain views I’ve seen. Unfortunately, Cul Mor was looking very murky for photos but I still took some. When we reached the end of the summit promenade, we came to the one and only path on the mountain – the route up from the stalkers’ track and little peak mentioned in the SMC Corbetts book. I peered over to see how steep it was and was very glad we hadn’t gone that way – I might have come up it but there was no way I’d have gone down at that angle with crags around and under some of the zig-zags of the path. It looked awful to me!
![Moody weather to Suilven.jpg]()
![The Knoll & Col of 'normal' ascent.jpg]()
We aimed for the lovely little lochan between Cul Beag’s summit and Meall Dearg for our descent. That was a lovely descent – the hill had ‘slumped’ a bit and was sort of terraced so looked a bit like a naturally zig-zagging path down. There was easily-angled grass between the ‘terraces’ and we bounded down. We’d already decided Meall Dearg had to be climbed as well as it was such a neat little peak.
![Descent to Meall Dearg.jpg]()
![Meall Dearg & lochan.jpg]()
![Cul Mor fm Cul Beag col.jpg]()
![Cul Mor summit from Cul Beag col.jpg]()
![Cul Mor minutes later in rain.jpg]()
Just as we arrived at the little lochan, the heavens opened (I’d seen it coming). We hunkered down behind some large rocks and put rain gear on and, while we were stopped, had a slice of tea-loaf and a hot drink. There was a great rainbow over Cul Mor but it didn’t really stand out of the murkiness when I looked through the SLR’s lens – I took it anyway… I took a few more photos, especially after we’d ascended Meall Dearg as it was a superb viewpoint looking back to Cul Beag and the ‘death path’ everyone else uses. Unfortunately I noticed I had lots of rain spots on my lens but know from experience that trying to get rid of them just causes smudges instead.
![Cul Beag from Meall Dearg.jpg]()
- Rainspots getting on my lens now:-(
Then there was nothing for it but to trudge back down the even wetter grass and bog to the car. The rain was by now running off my waterproofs and into my boots so I got back with thoroughly wet feet! No matter, it was our last day so I had a couple of weeks to get them dry again… We had planned to re-visit the excellent Elphin tearoom but decided we were too soggy and so just went back to the holiday let to get everything dried out before packing up in the morning.
Last edited by mountain coward on Sun Jan 02, 2011 1:17 am, edited 6 times in total.
