Ben Tee, shielings and slush
Ben Tee, the fairy hill, is seen to best advantage from Glen Garry where its conical shape makes a picturesque backdrop to the woods and the loch. At 901-metres it just falls short of Munro height so it’s relatively unfrequented. Despite that the hill’s position, in the cleft formed by Glen Garry and the Great Glen, makes it a superb viewpoint with the hills of Knoydart and Glen Shiel laid out before you and the whole trench of the Great Glen, leading to Fort Augustus and Loch Ness, stretching away to the east.
I had last climbed Ben Tee about 8 years ago and on that occasion I climbed the hill from the south, via the glorious Kilfinnan Falls. This time I wanted to tackle it from the north, from Glen Garry, following a network of forestry tracks that emanate from the little farming community at Greenfield. Following a couple of weeks in which more snow had fallen on Scotland than in the previous ten years put together I loaded the car with boots, ice axe and crampons, snowshoes and touring skis, equipped for any eventuality.
I had a dreamy notion of Nordic ski-ing along the forest tracks until I reached the footpath that runs up to the high pass of the Bealach Easain between Ben Hee and the sharp nose of Meall a’Choire Ghlais. At that point I would exchange the skis for snowshoes and plod up the deep snow to the summit, but I hadn’t realised how much damage an overnight thaw can do.
An old Scots folk song suggests: “The snaws they melt the soonest when the wind begins to sing…” Especially if those winds come from the south-west. Instead of snow covered forestry tracks the route from the bridge over the narrows of Loch Garry was covered in a kind of glazed slush and the mountain itself had been largely stripped of snow, with only a few white streaks standing out clearly against the dark of the heather. I decided to lighten my load and just carry trekking poles with an ice axe strapped to my pack. I doubted if I’d have to use it.
Forestry tracks tend to offer good approaches to the hills but unfortunately my ancient OS map didn’t show the complete network of forest tracks that exist now in this part of Glen Garry. At the first junction of tracks I took what I thought was the most obvious route only to discover it petered out about a mile later. Fortunately I had a GPS with me and a quick check gave me a grid reference that showed if I continued for a couple of hundred metres I’d come across the Allt Ladaidh. A footpath, on the river’s west bank, would take me the path I should have been on. It was a mistake worth making. The footpath climbed up through the woods alongside a river that was roaring and cascading with brown, peaty snow melt. Great icicles, like organ pipes, hung from the river’s banks and I followed the pawprints of a fox all the way to the track I should have been on.
From this point a broader track continued up the east bank of the Alt Ladaidh to the ruins of some shielings and a junction of right of ways. One went off to west and then south to Clunes on Loch Lochy-side while the other route headed immediately south over the Bealach Easain to Kilfinnan.
From this vantage point Ben Tee rises on uncompromisingly steep slopes to its conical summit and as soon as I could I left the very faint bealach path and took to the heather, making slow progress on slushy snow. By linking up some of the longer snow patches, the surface of which was firm enough to allow me to kick steps, I managed to move a bit faster, with shifting mists swirling in the bealach below and in Coire Ghlas opposite.
It was early afternoon by the time I reached Ben Tee’s big summit cairn and across the great gulf of the Bealach Easain below me the sharp nose of Meall a’ Choire Ghlais was fringed with snow, looking for all the world like a classic alpine ridge. The last time I was here I had climbed it, before striding round the big horseshoe ridge that encloses Choire Ghlais, taking in the Munro of Sron a’ Choire Ghlais, 935m a summit that’s usually linked with its close neighbour Meall na Teanga. Today I simply slid and slithered back down Ben Tee’s slopes to the old shielings and slid and slithered my way back along increasingly slushy forestry tracks to the car.