Climbing Scotland's Munros

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Outside Magazine, April 2005

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Scotland
The High Hills of Freedom (cont.)


	Map of Scotland by Mike Reagan

DRIVING NORTH FROM BEN LOMOND, I wind through the Trossachs, a picturesque region of forested lochs and crags much romanticized in the writings of Sir Walter Scott. But for me the Highlands really begin a bit farther north, with the great wilderness of Rannoch Moor, a high, desolate wasteland of heathery tussocks and bogs. Here the road parallels the West Highland Way, a well-trod 95-mile hiking trail that runs from Glasgow to Fort William, at the foot of 4,406-foot Ben Nevis, Britain's highest peak.

The few small hotels along the way are clogged with "ramblers"—not really hill walkers but walkers, pure and simple. Checking out their anoraks and the dorky map pouches strung around their necks, I can't help but feel a certain smug superiority—pretty much the same attitude, I am to discover, that climbers sling at Munro-baggers.

After Rannoch Moor, the road swings west and begins to drop down to the sea in the great green trough of Glen Coe. It's Scotland's version of Yosemite—no really big walls, but a triumphal avenue of glacially sculpted peaks and high, hidden valleys. I find a B&B in Ballachulish, on nearby Loch Leven, and in the morning return to the glen intent on bagging my second Munro, 3,773-foot Bidean nam Bian, Gaelic for "Pinnacle of the Hills."

The terrain is much steeper than Ben Lomond's, and by the time I reach the summit, it's snowing hard, and the view I'm counting on is gone. Rather than retreat the way I've come, I decide to continue east along a ridge to another Munro, Stob Coire Sgreamhach, "Peak of the Dreadful Corrie," eventually glissading down a scree gully to the valley bottom. It's a long day—eight hours, car to car—but one of the most exhilarating ridge walks I've ever done. Plus I've scored a bonus Munro!

That night in Fort William, I face a decision: Should I keep moving north or stay and attempt Ben Nevis, the biggest Munro of them all? I'm tempted—the Ben is just a straightforward five-mile plod by the so-called tourist path—but in the end I give it a miss. It will be a good candidate for my last Munro, I decide, should I ever attain the exquisite status that The Angry Corrie refers to as "M-minus-1."

Just south of Loch Ness, I turn west off the main road to Inverness and begin the long, beautiful drive to Skye. The road runs over a stretch of moorland and drops into a narrow valley. Glen Shiel is a Munro-bagger's paradise: All you have to do is climb up from one side of the road or the other and start ticking. Yet when I reach the trailhead for a peak called the Saddle—a unique Munro, in its lack of a Gaelic name—there's just one other vehicle in the car park.

The Saddle is on my list because of a famous knife-edge called the Forcan Ridge—a classic, dramatically exposed route that I'm hoping will offer some psychological preparation for the terrors of the Inaccessible Pinnacle. As I approach it, I overtake a young couple with the telltale hill walker's accessories, "hiking sticks," strapped to their daypacks. They seem pleased to have the company, and I am, too—the ridge has a number of less-than-obvious passages and slippery downclimbs, and it helps to share the route-finding chores.

An hour later we're on the summit, picnicking on a grassy slope near the trig point and soaking up the view. The Saddle, the woman proudly informs me, is her 87th Munro, and she plans to tick another before nightfall. Tomorrow she and her husband will do the South Glen Shiel Ridge, a 14-mile jaunt giving seven Munros, then cross the glen and tag the Five Sisters of Kintail on Sunday. If the weekend works out according to plan, she'll be back at work Monday morning with 100 Munros in the bag. She looks at her husband and snorts. "You're stuck on forty-something, aren't you?"

He shrugs: "She's goal-oriented, and I'm not."

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