After the sunshine of Spain, the contrast of the autumnal weather of the highlands in Scotland and near freezing temperatures, was a bit of a shock. As we were visiting Tain anyway, I thought it would make a great trip to go north to the village of Altnaharra and then spend a day on Ben Hope, the most northerly of the Scottish Munros, whilst Helen and Dad went up to the nearby northern coast. We had a great B&B in Altnaharra (apparently it is now on the Land's End to John O'Groats cycle route as we found when sharing the B&B). The day before, the area had gale force winds and rain but the mountain forecast for the 10th was reasonable with a good chance of getting a clear sky at the summit and no rain all day.
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| Ben Hope taken from the Dun Dornaigil Broch on the road from Altnaharra and about 2 miles from the car park giving access. |
I took the route from the car park just north of the Dun Dornaigil Broch, a "beehive" stone structure (roundhouse) dating back about 2000 years. This climbed steeply on a rock path that had become a stream and then over peat and wet ground. always keeping the main stream (in photo) on the left
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| Waterfall on Allt-na-caillich burn which the route follows on the first part of the climb, |
The route finds a way through a gap in the crags to the main summit ridge. Looking up I noticed a group of deer watching me but they vanished as soon as I got closer. At this stage I got great views to the Strathmore with the river winding into the distance. By this time, the ground was much firmer and made for more pleasant walking.
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| View of the descent under the clouds from below Ben Hope's summit to the crags and the view looking to the south down Strathmore glen. |
There were a few large cairns by this stage marking the way along the broad ridge as the "path" continued to wriggle a gradual ascent. At one point, I thought I was approaching the top to find a false summit and another hill to climb. At this stage, with a sprinkling of snow underfoot, the cloud was low enough to obliterate the view as the wind from the north cooled me down. I hung around at the summit trig station hoping for the weather to clear and to explore a little to the north, but rather than improving, the cloud was getting worse.
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| You might wonder why I included the summit trigonometry station in the clouds - I'm sure someone knows ! |
The ascent only took me a couple hours so I had plenty of time but it wasn't a pleasant place to wait. I think even Robert Macfarlane (who recounted his experience spending the night up here in "The Wild Places") would have agreed! Anyway, almost as compensation for the missed view, I heard some "clucking" sounds and then spotted a flock of Rock Ptarmigan (see photo) running between the rocks and difficult to see in the white and grey background. However, they didn't seem bothered by my presence and just darted about among the snow and rocks always keeping a few paces in front of me, welcome company!
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| Can you see the Rock Ptarmigan amongst the rocks? There was about a dozen in the area. |
The descent was easy enough and as the sun tried to get through, gave some views down the glen and across to the sea in the north.
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