THE GREAT OUTDOORS
Ben Cruachan is a challenge that reaps great rewards
The highest of a popular group of four Munros and a Corbett near Dalmally, Ben Cruachan is one of Scotland’s most famous mountains.
It’s an enormous hill, the highest for miles. It dominates its neighbours and is prominent in views from many other distant hills in the Central and Western Highlands.
Ben Cruachan is quite the perfect mountain, with four ridges rising from each point of the compass, culminating in a sharp, pointed peak that towers over Loch Awe.
It can be climbed as a single hill, or in combination with its neighbours – a long traverse of all the Munros, with a high-level camp, is one of the finest mountain outings in the Highlands. A much shorter outing, a wonderful horseshoe route circling Cruachan Reservoir and taking a second Munro, Stob Daimh, reveals much of the character of the mountain. It traverses grassy slopes, a band of massive boulders at the summit, and involves very minor scrambling and a lovely ridge walk. It’s not huge in terms of distance, but involves much up and down and is a fairly testing day out.
On clear days the summit views out over the coast to the western islands, Mull prominent, are spectacular. To the north, the ground drops away dramatically into great, scooped corries. The land below looks remote and wild. Beyond lie the tangled ridges and rumpled peaks of Glen Etive and Glen Coe.
It’s always a busy hill but big enough to rarely feel crowded. The Cruachan Horseshoe is a marvellous round on the longer days of late winter, when the snow lies hard and thick. On those rare days, snow crunching under crampons and surrounded by the enormous hills that encircle the reservoir, creating an amphitheatre, the circuit feels like a proper mountain expedition.