Beinn Maol Chaluim
Hidden away in a cleft of wild mountainous land between Glen Coe and Glen Etive the Corbett of Beinn Maol Chaluim, 2957ft/907m, does not attract large numbers of hillwalkers. Its proximity to the popular Munros of Glen Coe tends to keep it relatively free of people and those hillwalkers who do take the long single-tracked road down Glen Etive are usually intent on bagging the impressive Ben Starav.
With every car park along the A82 through Glen Coe full to overflowing I decided I wanted a quiet day on the hill, and I knew from past experience on Beinn Maol Chaluim that I needn’t go far in search of it.
Glen Etive, unusually, was also busy but with paddlers not hillwalkers. Every little waterfall had half a dozen stubby, brightly coloured canoes waiting to take the plunge and the grass verges were full of cars and people camping for the weekend. Despite the general air of busyness I was still confident of a quiet day on Beinn Maol Chaluim.
A large herd of red deer grazed close to the road as I parked the car just past Inbhir-fhaolain opposite the wind-ruffled waters of Lochan Urr. I momentarily thought of dropping down from the road to the lochside to take a photograph of the twin Buachailles of Glen Etive with the loch as a foreground but being an extremely lazy photographer decided, conveniently, that the light was too flat. And it was. Dark clouds just tickled the summits of the highest peaks and it felt unseasonably cold. There was a greyness in the day that suggested that winter hadn’t quite yet finished with us.
Despite the chill it didn’t take long to get sweating on the lower slopes of Creag na Caillich, en route to Beinn Maol Chaluim’s southern ridge. The slope is unrelentingly steep but the upside is that you can gain height quickly and within twenty minutes or so I was getting a hint of what the views were to be like later in the day. The twin Buachailles looked magnificent and behind me the steep slopes of Stob Dubh fell into the glen in one scree-scarred curtain. Further down the glen I caught the silver sparkle of Loch Etive, trapped in the cleft between triple-topped Ben Starav and Beinn Trilleachean.
Once you reach the broad south ridge of Beinn Maol Chaluim only a steep, short and sharp climb separates you from the magnificent high level ridge that leads to the summit. Although steep, it’s straightforward enough until you reach the top of it. There, the summit ridge is protected by a long wall of vertical red phorphyr. You can avoid these crags by traversing right for some distance but there are one or two breaches in the wall where even non-scramblers can clamber through. Beyond it some minor tops leads to the summit ridge itself, which is pleasantly narrow and today, fringed with snow.
What a marvellous high-level romp this produces – on one side steep slopes lead to another ridge that connects with the Munro of Sgorr na h-Ulaidh and on the other side even steeper slopes drop down into the bare fastness of Gleann Fhaolain, the narrow glen that separates Beinn Maol Chaluim from the Bidean nam Bian massif.
I had harboured some tentative thoughts about descending into Gleann Fhaolain, climbing steeply to Bidean, following its ridge east to Stob Coire Sgreamhach before descending back into Glen Etive, but dark clouds obscured the Bidean tops and there appeared to be a dusting of new snow on the higher tops. Discretion being the better part of valour (I didn’t carry an ice axe) I loitered for a while beside the two summit cairns, dropped down out of the wind for a scenic lunch break, then returned to Glen Etive the way I had come. As a reward the sun shone for a while on the descent illuminating some of the finest views you’ll see in this magnificently mountainous part of highland Scotland. And was the hill as quiet as I expected? No, not quite. I saw three other people.
Photo: The Buachailles and Glen Etive from the slopes of Beinn Maol Chaluim