The Herald - The Herald Magazine
Stob Ban An overlooked gem which is
Location: Grade: Distance: Time:
IALWAYS feel the spring solstice in March is a turning point, a demarcation line that signals a steady lengthening of the days and all the natural response that brings with it. It’s small wonder our pagan ancestors celebrated this event with such gusto.
With Christmas and New
Year behind us for another year, my thoughts naturally turn to a walk in the hills – to Stob Ban in the Grey Corries – lockdown permitting.
I’ve always been aware of doing this grand little hill a disservice by tacking it onto the Grey Corries group, like some sort of addendum, for in essence Stob Ban’s a solitary Munro rising in shapely splendour between Coire Rath and the broad defile of the Lairig Leacach.
In reality it’s beyond and separate from the main Grey Corries ridge, although few Munro-baggers treat it as an individual – the 800m bealach that connects it to Stob Choire Claurigh and the rest of the ridge is too convenient, the temptation to tack on another Munro to the three Grey Corries summits is too strong.
But occasionally, just occasionally, it’s nice to climb a mountain like Stob Ban for its own sake, to savour its individual character in isolation from the higher hills around it.
On my last visit, it was after 10am as I followed the track through the forest beyond Corriechoille above Glen
Spean. Although I only had one mountain to climb I was aware of Stob Ban’s relative remoteness.
The track over the Lairig Leacach rises gently below the twin Corbetts of Cruach Innse and Sgurr Innse.
A herd of deer moved like a cloud shadow over the lower slopes of Stob Coire na Ceannain, driven down low by a late dusting of snow.
Older snow patches lay in vertical runnels, making a corduroy pattern of white and grey with the quartzite screes of the summit slopes.
It didn’t take me long to reach the Lairig Leacach bothy, from where I had my first glimpse of Stob Ban. Narrow-topped and conical, this ‘white peak’, like the Grey Corries, has a cap of white quartzite scree giving the impression of year-round snow cover. Beyond the bothy I followed the rough path that cut through the heather beside the waters of the Allt a’ Chuil Choirean and climbed steadily into a high corrie.
Above lay the steep slopes leading to the bealach between