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Someone said here of Suilven: ‘it’s a better mountain to look at than to climb’.
I’d suggest Cul Mor next door is the opposite. A comparatively unstriking mass of rock, mush and rubble, but what views!
We were actually planning to knock off as-yet unwalked Canisp, but it lashed down here two days ago and the stepping stones 5 mins in were awash. It would have been a knee deep wade with a sporty current - OK for me and my stick, but g-friend doesn’t have the advantage of my ballast.
‘Let’s do Cul Mor instead’, I said.
‘OK then.’
I actually did it a few years ago but have forgotten how easy it is. Well, easy as in there’s a good approach path, unlike Canisp, it’s said.
Up on the rubble dome of Meallan Diomhain I was led astray by the call of the cairns to the unnecessary summit, when we should have kept right. But we saw where we had to go, squidged cross country and picked up the track on the ridge, just as it turns to take in a great view down across Loch Veyatie to Suilven, and the uninspiring wedge of Canisp.
Clamber up the boulder garden to the trig, only two hours walk from the car, and we’d arrived just as spotlights of sunshine scanned the scene before us, like choppers searching for miscreants in ‘LA’s Wildest Late-Nite Police Videos’.
To the south behind Cul Beag, amazing BM Coigach and the Torridons. Below, the jigsaw of lochs I’ve connected over the years with a packraft between the two fins of Stac and Suilven. It was all quite breathtaking.
Definitely a better mountain to be on than to look at, given the stiff competition hereabouts.
There were a couple of noisy Dutch blokes on the sister summit, Creag nan Calman. We met them at the pass.
They too were amazed by the drama fit for Game of Thrones.
We dropped down to the grassy prom below for a few more pics, they set off down the valley towards Meallan.
When our turn came, don’t know if there’s a right way but I remember we didn’t find it last time either.
The clear path of the south side of the burn leads you astray. North side, x-country must be better to regain Diomhain.
Up ahead the Dutch blokes looked like they were locked onto the waypoint of the car park and heading way too far south.
What may have been their rental car was still there when we got back, after trudging cross-country round the south side of Meallan to eventually join the track and tramp home to a hot bath. Off piste the hillsides were sodden and slimy; I must have slipped half-a-dozen times in my over-stiff desert boots.
Cul Mor: a great half-day out for a panorama unlike anywhere else in Scotland.
