May 8 & 9: Glencoe & Buachaille Etiv Mor
Before we got to Scotland, we really wanted
to climb a mountain or two in Glencoe.
We also really wanted to do Ben Nevis, but had heard that it was still
very snowy and wintry up there, and we didn’t have crampons or an ice axe or
anything, so didn’t want to risk doing a big mountain unprepared. Like I’ve said before, lots of tourists do
stupid things and die on these mountains, even with the help of Scotland’s
mountain rescue. We decided to cross Ben
Nevis off our list and move it to the ‘when we come back/move to Scotland’
list.
The mountain we had wanted to climb in
Glencoe is called Buacaille Etiv Mor, which I think means ‘the big herdsman’
because they used to have cattle up there or something. It’s one of the most photographed mountains
in Britain and rose to prominence when it featured in all the panoramic shots
of James Bond’s boarding school in the Skyfall movie. If it’s good enough for James Bond, it’s good
enough for me. It also has a big of a
children’s-rudimentary-drawing-of-a-mountain kind of feel about it, so we
wanted to go up for that reason too.
Buachaille Etiv Mor
We’d also heard that Glencoe was still in
the throes of winter, particularly 1000m up, so we naively decided to give The
Buachaille a miss, and have a leisurely picnic in Glen Etive instead. We regretted this immediately, mostly because
the sky was clear and it was perfect mountain-tackling weather, and The
Buachaille was so domineering in the landscape and all the tourists came and
stopped to take pictures of it, us included.
We wandered through the glen and found a
nice spot by the river to have our oatcakes and dip in the sun. We sat here for about an hour before moving
from scenic lookout to scenic lookout, still listening to our audiobook. Lots of Americans jumped out of their car at
the lookouts, posed with their selfie sticks in front of the mountains, then
got back in their car and kept driving.
We felt like we’d entered real tourist territory by sitting back in the
car instead of being up there on the mountain.
Nicholas preparing our picnic
The river where we had our picnic
The Buachaille from the side
The perfect, almost symmetrical glen beside The Buachaille
One of the Three Sisters
Nicholas looking like a model
“Oh, well, we needed a rest day,” we kept
saying, somewhat wistfully. The weather
kept taunting us though and we wished we’d gone up.
That night we were back at Faisnacloich –
which I haven’t even told you about.
When we first arrived, two dogs, a brown, short-legged mutt with big
eyes, and a little white Scottish terrier, greeted us.
“Puppies!” I exclaimed.
“We didn’t know there’d be puppies here,”
Nicholas whispered excitedly. I don’t
know if I told you, but we did pick a lot of AirBnB’s particularly because they
advertised as having pets.
The man smiled and let us in. “Yes,” he said. “You don’t mind cats, do you?”
Mind? No, we don’t mind cats.
They treated us to amazing dinner both
nights we stayed with them – one night spotting a deer in the woods out their
window – and took a shine to us, allowing us to stay in their home and housesit
while they went to Spain. We weren’t
complaining by any means – extra time with lovely animals, and a beautiful home
to base ourselves in while we ventured around.
Anyway, that evening we flicked through
many books and looked online at the mountain.
It looked like we were to have another perfect weather day and we didn’t
want to lose it. Unfortunately, the
route most places advised was the snowiest one, and we’ve not got a whole heap
of experience trekking in snow. I,
especially, don’t. We found one in an
old book saying it was ‘the easiest and most fail-safe way up the mountain for
your first time’ (which may have been true at the time of printing) and set off
first thing in the morning.
The view from the top
The sun was perfect again and the clouds
were sitting very high above the mountain.
We set off on our slightly daunting expedition up and up and up. We had to stop several times because I was
getting absolutely chronic period pain.
About 2/3 of the way up the mountain, I had to knock back a panadeine
fort which I later regretted.
I was still lucid when we reached the top
of the mountain, where we found a few British tourists and a few Scots
wandering around, all having taken various routes up the mountain. We were joined for lunch by a friendly raven
who didn’t seem too bothered by anyone up on the mountain. I’m almost sure he was posing for photographs,
too. As we began the descent, I started
to get a bit hazy and having trouble finding my footing and asking Nicholas
questions like “Nick, if you had to be a bumblebee or a falcon, which would you
choose?” I don’t particularly remember
this, but Nicholas has brought it up, laughing, several times.
The raven who joined us for lunch
Looking down the cliff-face
Nicholas on top of Buachaille Etiv Mor
To be honest, most of the decent is a bit
of a hazy mess, except one part where we found ourselves precariously close to
a cliff face and Nicholas kept telling me to be extra careful, because I was
having a bit of trouble staying upright.
Eventually we reached the car, having taken much longer than
anticipated, and we stopped by the Food Co-op on the way home to get some soya
desserts and veggie sausages. I would
definitely recommend coming home from a long day mountain trekking to find 4 happy
and hungry beasts awaiting your return.
The sunset on the way home
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