Scotland's best mountain?

2016 Jun 22 - hiking scotland

My walking pals convinced me to join them for a long weekend in Ullapool - how could I say no to that? Cute little Ullapool! There was a catch though, they wanted to climb the mountain An Teallach. An Teallach is a grade 5 walk on the trusted Walkhighlands scale (click), 7-11 hours long excluding breaks:

“This fabled mountain is perhaps the most impressive in Britain, and gives a day of drama and views that will live in the memory forever. The full traverse is a magnificent scramble, whilst the two Munros can be reached by an easier there-and-back route.”

I agreed to do it only if conditions were perfect, little wind, good visibility, not too much snow. An easy way out I thought, because conditions are never perfect in Scotland.

But oh boy, was I wrong! The sun just wouldn’t stop shining, no winds but a gentle breeze, and no excuses for me! But what sealed the deal for me in the end was this obnoxious older guy in the bunkhouse who kept mansplaining and acted incredulous when I said that I was going to climb An Teallach. Well, I would show him. Arsehole.

Anyway, everyone else in the bunkhouse was lovely as always in the hills, including and especially my walking pals, Jono, Vivien and Valentina. Also, all of them are great at food-related things, such as buying food, the snacks they bring, and especially cooking! Perfect company for a weekend in the hills.

The big walk started off rather pleasantly up a forestry track along a burn. And while the climb wasn’t exactly gentle, the countryside was varied enough to distract from the hard work. The other thing that distracted was the worry about the things yet to come…

The first thing to come was leaving the nice track to climb up a spur. This spur was not the trampled path I had envisaged, but a giant pile of boulders. It was quite a slog to climb the steep rocky slope, but after that the next tops looked grassy and fairly easy.

We then got an excellent overview over the tops and pinnacles of An Teallach - a daunting sight. The sun came out intermittently, and the views were far and incomparable.

Once we reached the first pinnacle I looked at the route and chickened out. For the first time in my walking history I was actually scared of following a route. I thought it too risky to do this bit without ropes - not because it was a difficult climb, but it was more than a scramble and if you fell you’d get seriously hurt.

I left the boys behind and took the bypass route, but soon they caught up with me. It wasn’t safe. Or maybe we didn’t find the right starting point. But after bypassing the pinnacles we finally reached the first top and then the second, and it being a bank holiday weekend and perfect weather there were loads of other people up there as well, a party really!

Such good fun! The descent was knee-shattering, it was overall quite a long day, and the midges got us in the end when we almost got lost in a rhododendron tunnel. But this is one beautiful mountain, an exhilarating walk, and I’d do it again.