The Platform

Tuesday 1st November 2016

You may recall Jon’s story of his trek across the three Munros of the Grey Corries in Lochaber last year and this time it was my turn to write up the blog.

As Jon Brookes and I discussed some hillwalking photos on the terrace at Terrasses du Port two years ago, little did we foresee that we would find ourselves committing to an annual adventure together.

Once again Jon and I arranged to set the date in October and hope the weather played out in our favour. My home base lies at the wonderful NE coastal town of Nairn and decided it was again best for Jon to base himself there for the weekend so that we could be flexible on our destination dependent on the weather.

With the final weather forecast suitably reviewed on Friday evening, the decision was taken to head for Torridon in the North West Highlands to climb Beinn Alligin – which in Gaelic means Mountain of Beauty. Once again we were accompanied by my hillwalking buddy Brian and the early morning drive to the hill was full of conversations on how stunning the Torridon landscape was, the beauty of Beinn Alligin  and – by the way – we will be going over the Horns of Alligin. “What are the Horns of Alligin?” asked Jon – “a bit more exposure than last year Jon so don’t fall off.”

After a few hours hard labour in surprisingly mild weather for the time of year, the full panorama of Beinn Alligin opened up for us offering fantastic views from the top of  Tom na Gruagaich, not just of the other Torridon mountains, but as far as the Cuilins on Skye, Isle of Eigg, Raasay, Rona and incredibly the Outer Hebrides at Harris and Lewis – Jon was seriously impressed by the outstanding vista for his lunch and didn’t seem too bothered by the 2000ft drop just to the right of his dinner table.

As we enjoyed our corned beef sandwiches we were joined by another young chap who had made good time climbing to the top – “are you going over the Horns of Alligin” he asked. “yip – are you?” – “no way” he said. As Jon took in the view over to the rather narrow looking Horns and the shear drops off of them he now had confirmation of a hillwalker who wasn’t fancying going near them.

Off we headed to our next stop at Eag Dubh (The Black Cleft) on our way to Sgurr Mor, our second Munro. Once again Jon posed for the photo opportunity at Eag Dubh next to a massive vertical drop without any concerns at all – I was starting to worry that The Horns of Alligin weren’t going to be scary enough for this guy. 

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