Just the one Munro – and no need to hurry
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OUT AND ABOUT WITH RALPH A day-long outing to good old Ben Hope, tackling the steep and rough northern slopes rather than the tourist route from the south
As I write, Donnie Campbell is attempting to cycle, kayak and run over all the 280 or so Munros (3000ft peaks) in an impossible 33 days. His longest day will involve 50 miles of running and 20,000 feet of climbing and he will just keep going, day after day, in whatever the Scottish weather can throw at him.
A week ago, it took me all day to climb just one Munro, good old Ben Hope. But then who’s for hurrying? Almost everyone goes up the hill by the tourist route from the south, but it is much more interesting to tackle the very steep and rough northern slopes. Here are high hill lochans and lonely corries, the haunt of ptarmigan and mountain hare. Mind, last time I climbed from the north, eight years ago, I was feeling ill on the drive home, it turned serious and it took over a year before I was fit enough to climb the hill again…
The road from Hope lodge to Altnaharra has seen better days but is fine if driven at 20 mph while keeping an eagle eye out for the very overgrown passing places. Leaving the car near the south end of Loch Hope I headed upwards over degraded peat, country that would be woodland but for grazing deer which keep the little birch seedlings from ever getting any taller. A cold wind fortunately kept away the summer insect pests. It was bright and I was hopeful that cloud would lift off the tops.
A long, slow climb over moorland leads eventually to the base of steep slopes with the summit 2000 feet above. Already the view had opened out over Loch Hope and towards Whiten Head. Now a very steep, grassy gully led upwards. Moorland flowers of yellow bog asphodel and pink cross-leaved heath gave way to the green alpine lady’s mantle and the little yellow goldenrod with occasional starry saxifrage, its white petals dotted with gold. Here too was a strange rock pinnacle looking like a lady reclining against the hillside. Or was this the priest of “Poll na Chleirich”, a name on the map just below? Has anyone climbed it?
Here are high hill lochans and lonely corries, the haunt of ptarmigan and mountain hare.
Eventually gaining the north ridge, the fine hill lochs to the east came into view and after a short climb the final obstacle rose in front. The ridge narrows to the “Bad Step”, a difficult and exposed scramble above a huge drop. The western side of Ben Hope is one of the steepest mountainsides in Scotland. You can see it from my house, over 40 miles away, as a notch in the ridge just to the right of the summit. People have died here. I avoid it by a safe gully a little to the left which leads to a zigzag route up through broken crags, regaining the ridge above the difficulty. Some easy scrambling then takes you up to the anticlimax of the summit plateau.
Earlier I’d heard a lot of shouting and noise, probably somebody celebrating their last Munro with friends. Ben Hope is often chosen as the last. My final Munro was the Inaccessible Pinnacle of Skye. Now at least a dozen people were coming and going with the mists, as views opened and closed of mountain, loch and sea.
I simply walked past the summit where a group was sheltering from the cold winds, turned down the next ridge to the east and immediately had the whole landscape to myself again, other than for a mountain hare. An Garbh-Choire – the rough corrie – tells you that going will be very slow, with rock slab, boulder and steep broken slopes. Once down to the fine lochan of Coir a Ghallaidh (corrie of the strangers?) there is more very broken ground of peat and heather before finally picking up the easier route of ascent.
The sun came out and it was briefly even warm for the last stretch though long grass and heather to the road. These days it’s common to climb Ben Klibreck in the morning and Ben Hope in the afternoon, but it’s a pity to be in such a hurry, even if you are fit enough. I expect, though, that Donnie Campbell will do a lot more than than Klibreck on the last day of his Munro run before he finishes on Ben Hope.
