April in Torridon, always a gamble. It could be full winter conditions on Liathach or shorts and T shirt rock climbing on Beinne Eighe. It might be hot and hazy, with a day wandering the hills interspersed with welcome dips in burns and lochans, or that wander may be more reminiscent of Scott’s last expedition. This weekend was not unusual. It was quite wet, but not a washout. There were views, but not many. And there was snow, but not much.
The club stayed at the classic mountaineering hut, the Ling Hut. The hut was found easily by most, despite being shyly tucked away from the road on the far side of a lochan. Unfortunately Jen never quite made it, shortly after crossing the Kessock Bridge the dashboard on her car lit up like a pinball machine and she sensibly stopped to evaluate the damage. The breakdown services recommended a tow home and a premature end to any Torridon adventures. The rest of the party arrived at the hut, opened the shutters, lit the fire, dumped sleeping bags on the Alpine bunk in the bedroom and suspiciously eyed up the black mould on the walls. Seats were taken, bottles opened and plans made for what was forecast to be the only decent hill day of the weekend.
Saturday dawned dry but a little grey, as Dan describes his day out with two young ladies…
“Beinn Dearg, Dan M, Sheena F and Jenny S. Situated in the heart of the Torridon hills, Beinn Dearg offers possibly the best viewpoint in the whole of Scotland. Despite some early promise, the clag later came down and so no views. The ascent up the western end of the ridge was steep, but eventually the summit cairn was reached. A few tantalising glimpses of snowy gullies, a ptarmigan and the frozen Loch a Choire Mhoir from the ridge. Easy descent to the main path running between Liathach and Beinn Eighe.
Evelyne had a head start, arriving on Friday morning and set off from the Beinn Eighe Visitor Centre along the Pony Path to the bealach between Ruadh Stuc Beag and Meall Giubhais. She enjoyed some expansive views on the way up but as the heavens opened the hills disappeared and the views became restricted to frogspawn in puddles on the path.
Fiona C and Bob set off to traverse the classic of classics, Liathach, but soon wisely changed their minds when the thick grey clag descended so they headed to climb Sgurr Dubh via the gorge and other variations… “Weather clear for most of the day with the odd light shower but cloud came down when we reached the summit. The descent back to the hut was quite enjoyable, passing lots of lochans en route. Slippery underfoot on the quartzite and last year’s grass.”
Andy, Jake, Graeme, Dave and PennyTWD set off to ascend both An Staonach and Ben Sheildaig. However, after ascending An Staonach plans to also ascend Ben Sheildaig were abandoned in favour of ascending the lofty heights of the Sheildaig bar where good beer was had.
Fiona D (the obvious question being where’s Fiona A and B if we have a C and D) and Alan also headed out in a vaguely southerly direction from the hut, but if you think an abundance of Fionas is confusing this is nothing to the confusion suffered by Fiona and Alan during their walk… “Headed out to Sgurr nan Lochan Uaine from the Ling Hut but found ourselves on Beinn Liath Mhor. Ooops! Slight navigational error. Walking with two other guys from south of the Border. They made the same mistake! Descent from Munro tricky and lots of deep snow. Took five hours to get to Sgurr nan Lochan Uaine but we made it eventually. From there we headed out to Sgorr Dubh. Quite tricky route finding. Bumped into Fiona and Bob who were meant to be on Liathach! Three great hills today. Back before dark.”
A team of six planned an ascent of Beinn Alligin, although the group started to split, firstly when Jane apparently got a better offer, and secondly when Evelyne decided that scrambling over the “Horns of Alligin” wasn’t quite what she had in mind for a day in the hills. Evelyne climbed to the summit of the hill via the steep corrie on the southern side and, as the clag had already descended, decided to follow suit and descend the same way. The other four, Kat, Sheila, Robert and Joe, continued on as described by Kat.
“After being abandoned by Jane, the fabulous four set off on a mission to conquer Beinn Alligin (both Munros via the horns!). A fab scramble was had before the clag descended and all subsequent views were shrouded for the remainder of the day. After a seemingly endless ascent following several false alarms the summit of the first Munro was reached. We had to fight through a horde of Edinburgh University students to touch the cairn before setting off again… in the wrong direction. Thankfully Joe decided this was a good spot to take a bearing so disaster was averted before we ended up in the “Muckle Cleft”. In due course we reached the second Munro (again behind the students who were enjoying yet another snack). We gladly descended at this point amongst cries of “Whoever calls this a path is having a laugh!” and “Who runs up this shit?!” Joe also shared his fantasies about big Irish men. EVENTUALLY we spotted the car in the distance, and there was much rejoicing.”
Jane’s rhyming couplets tell of her day out with Shane:
“Set off to Beinn Alligin but then I jumped ship
‘Traded up’ last minute for the Liathach trip
Spidean a Choire Leith was rapidly ascended
Where last night’s rum was painfully mended
The glorious views were obscured by the mist
But fuck it! It added to the Munro bagging list!
Rock faces and chasms appeared feet away
Adding mystique to an adventurous day
The walk back was saved by a successful hitchhike
Same again tomorrow? Nah, forecast’s shit like!”
Now, tradition somehow dictates that when the weather forecast is poor for the Sunday some care-free types will generally take this to be an order to ensure that if the hills are unfit to be climbed, they too must be unfit to climb them. And so there was much rejoicing on Saturday night. The resulting sight of hungover mountaineers blinking at the blue sky and staring, disbelieving, at the gorgeous outline of summit crest of Liathach in the morning sunshine and cursing the weather forecast for forcing them to drink so much is hilarious in its absurdity, even if you happen to be among the ranks of the hungover. However, experience shows that meteorologists are generally good at predicting what’s coming, it’s just the timing that’s the difficult part…
“Fiona C and Bob M drove to Achnasheen on the Sunday to climb Fionn Bheinn. The weather was calm, balmy and dry when we set of up the side of the Allt Achadh na Sine but as we reached the top of the first steep section the rain started. Negotiating the Peat Hags we decided to stop for a bite to eat before the final assault to the summit, on reaching the edge of the North Coire were amazed by the cornices hanging over the edge, a short walk to the summit just as the wind and rain were increasing, no time to linger it was back down and along the ridge to the east before heading south and down to the top of Creagan nan Laogh to pick up the river to lead us back to civilisation. A great day out with all types of weather thrown at us.”
Robert headed up Liathach on his own and enjoyed a beautiful hill, despite the weather which of course came in as predicted, if a little late. Thankfully this ascent was much more relaxing and uneventful than the last time he was on Liathach when Mountain Rescue had to be called out to retrieve his companion who had fallen and badly injured himself.
Jenny, Joe, Kat and Sheila headed to Diabaig to keep their heads below the cloud and check out the cragging potential of the gneiss cliffs. It was agreed that the gneiss was indeed nice, however, the weather wasn’t so nice. After a wee wander and some nostalgic reminiscing of a wreck just off the coast by Jenny the four made a dash to the pub for a hot bowl of purple soup to warn the cockles.
There was much moaning on Sunday morning about the failure of the forecast wind and rain to arrive (be careful what you wish for!). After some faffing and a fried breakfast (for some), Zippy, Tigger, Ooh-Me- Knees and Air Traffic Control decided to attempt an ascent of the mighty Seana Mheallan – an impressive peak of 17,204 inches. The first ominous spots rain fell just as they departed. Air Traffic Control, who’s spirits had initially been high, decided that there would be no flying on a Sunday and made a rather sneaky departure to drier territory. The remaining trio trudged up a rather soggy ascent over several false tops. Even the summit “plateau” was a knobbly affair, but thanks to Zippy’s drainage works there is now one less lochan to negotiate.
Lunch was had whilst lurking behind a small cliff just below the cairn and then it was time to return. Zippy and Tigger, both fully versed in Roman navigation techniques, quickly plotted a straight line back to the car. It might be straight in plan, but the elevation profile was a little less so. However, once started, there was no going back. A few diversions were needed to avoid the most precipitous of the cliffs, but eventually Zippy and Tigger weaved a suitable heather clad route to the valley floor. The River Torridon was approached with trepidation, but proved easier to cross than had been thought – speed being the key to feet dry. Meanwhile, OMK was somewhere back up the hill suffering from visibility problems…but we didn’t get where we are today without Darwin’s survival of the fittest. With this in mind Zippy and Tigger buggered off.
The rather soggy trio were on wombling duties for the walk back up Glen Torridon to the car. It’s a sad reflection of the society that we live in to find so much rubbish in such a beautiful location. Zippy and Tigger collected several energy drinks, a can of cider and some lager. Great Uncle Bulgaria’s wombling ability was compromised by rain-splattered glasses, but nonetheless he managed to womble a rather nice jumbo M&S sandwich.
And so ended our weekend in Torridon, but we shall return to this gorgeous area soon enough. Next month, the magical island of Rum, with its beautiful views and a heady mix of paleaogene peridotite, manx shearwaters and dodgy Bullough family history. I can’t wait!
Author: Joe
Photos: Kat and Andy