Aiming high to make it third time lucky
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MOUNTAIN WALK
Beinn Enaiglair
Distance – 12km
Terrain – Moorland and mountain path, boggy at times, and rough hill ground
Maps – OS 1:50,000 sheet 20, Beinn Dearg
Start/finish – Car park at north-west end of Loch Droma
A ridge walk to reach the summit of a Corbett at 889 metres, with stunning views
HIGH hills don’t have a monopoly on the best views. Often it’s lower summits that provide them, and that’s certainly the case with a Corbett neighbouring Beinn Dearg, to the north west of Loch Glascarnoch.
At 889 metres, Beinn Enaiglair is a fine hill, especially when approached from the south, starting from the car park at the end of Loch Droma – mostly used as an access point for the Fannichs.
To reach Beinn Enaiglair from here it’s necessary to cross the road and walk back along it for a short way to a metal gate beside Lochdrum farm.
Heading for the car park from Inverness after an unseasonably mild spell at the end of February, I was surprised to see the hills covered in new snow. A sudden drop in temperature overnight and some precipitation had clothed everything in white at this altitude.
I had been to the summit of Beinn Enaiglair twice before, but each time it was clagged in, depriving me of a view. I hoped not to be disappointed again today, and it was a promising start with even the Munros clear, apart from a few wisps of cloud.
My wife Rosemary and I climbed over the locked gate beside Lochdrum and began our walk on the path that follows the line of a burn flowing down to Loch Droma.
The path continues through two gates and after about a kilometre crosses the burn and veers away from it. We carried on over open ground, which can be very boggy in places, to reach a little ridge, which is crossed to gain the foot of the Corbett.
The path winds along the top of the ridge with great views of Beinn Dearg opposite and back towards Loch Glascarnoch and Ben Wyvis. Just as impressive to the south west, the Fannichs were looking their best today, clad in white.
We arrived at the foot of Beinn Enaiglair and stopped for a break before the final ascent. Within minutes we were enveloped in a heavy snow shower that blotted out all around us. I began to think it would be third time unlucky for a view from the top.
There’s a path all the way round the base of the hill which looks on the map like a lasso has been thrown over it, with the end of the rope coming from the forest alongside the Ullapool road – another possible approach to Beinn Enaiglair.
We stayed with the right-hand branch of this path for a short distance before leaving it to make the steady ascent up the Corbett’s south-east ridge.
Completely unseen because of its camouflage, a ptarmigan darted across the path in front of me, so close that I almost stepped on it. We looked at each other for a few seconds before the bird took flight and I lost the chance to get a close-up picture.
The ground on the lower slopes of the summit ridge is pathless but not difficult, and after the early stages the snow shower finally stopped and the weather cleared again.
It’s weather that makes mountains interesting and now we were presented with even clearer conditions than before as the shower moved south and east over Beinn Dearg.
The air was wonderfully crisp and clear, as if it had been swept clean. I could see the sharp ridge up Sgurr nan Clach Geala in the Fannichs, where John Davidson and I had enjoyed a winter day out a few weeks before.
I quickened my pace, eager to gain the top of Beinn Enaiglair before another shower rolled in. As it happened I needn’t have feared, for the weather stayed clear for the rest of the afternoon.
There are a couple of false summits to pass before the cairn on the top is reached – and wow, what a view lay in wait as I walked towards it.
I urged Rosemary on to join me and we both gazed in wonder at the spectacle before us. It was a view that had everything. In front was the unmistakeable form of An Teallach and out across the waters of Loch Broom lay Ullapool with the sea beyond.
Everything seemed to be lit up in technicolour, with the contrast of the brown hillside, the greens of the fields below, snow on the high mountains and the blues and greys of the water.
It was hard to tear ourselves away, and at last I had got my view from Beinn Enaiglair. Well worth the wait, I’d say.
To get down we reversed the route and back at the car park met a couple who’d been into the Fannichs, also surprised at the amount of snow and equally pleased with their day’s achievements.
