Aonach Mor east ridge

There’s stunning scenery on this engrossing and committing Grade 1 scramble.

Aonach Mor is a mountain of strong contrasts. To the west it faces Fort William and has all the trappings of easy access and uplift provided by the Nevis Range ski grounds; to the east it is utterly wild, trackless and tricky to access. If you want a quick fix the western side of the mountain is ideal; if on the other hand you like your adventure to be engrossing and fully committing it’s to the east you must head. The eastern approaches are a series of stepped and complex interlinked corries that end at a long headwall. This wall is made up of precipitous buttresses of distinct, pink granite. From a distance they look to be a formidable barrier; happily, although the crags are the domain of climbers, they are also breached by three narrow ridges. These ridges, while set in very dramatic situations, provide relatively easy routes up past the crags. Each ridge comes in at a fairly sedate Grade 1 scramble, and so long as you have a head for heights (and the ridges are snow-free) they will provide mountain walkers with a simple ascent. Of the three, the best one to start with is the east ridge. It tops out within a stone’s throw of Aonach Mor’s summit cairn and so has a very satisfying finish to it. However, more importantly, the approach to it leads you through truly stunning scenery. You can mix and match a bit depending on which line you take, but either way you’ll enter a world that has little changed since the last ice age. Jeremy Ashcroft mountaineering editor