A hiking trip to the Isle of Rum – Part #1 – a detour up Buachaille Etive Mor

Part #1 isn’t actually about Rum at all. More of that in the 2nd part of this extended post. This is the ‘Let’s climb a Mountain on the way up to climbing some Mountains’ post.
The plan was to get our walking legs in after a few hours of driving from Marsden en route to Mallaig (to get the ferry to Rum the next morning). So we stopped near Glencoe and hit the hills (well, a Mountain).

This post is more photos than words as, one week on, I still have a really (really) aching shoulder and arm from traversing the Rum Cuillins 🙂 Legs are fine. Arm .. strangely not so. Holding on too tight to some rocks higher than my vertigo-challenged head wanted to be perhaps. Anyway, more of that next time .. in the meantime, I give you: Buachaille Etive Mòr

I had to ask Team Leader / Organiser / Motivator (more in post #2) Ali a couple of times what this mountain, that we were looking up at after 6 hours of driving, was called. I’m so not a peak bagger by trade, I don’t really know my Munroes from my Corbetts. I think I’m made for long trails with, okay, some elevation, but not too much exposure to really quite enormous drops. In fact (on the way back down) I remarked “I’m more of a moors troll than a mountain troll – but that was good”. And so I am. Swift, pretty steep ascents are not my natural thing. And exposed high places entice out a monkey from my rucksack, who then sits there pointing out all the dangers to me whilst holding my head between its paws and rotating it swiftly around, so I start to feel a dizzy (and more of that in part 2 also).

BUT – monkey (and relative fitness) aside, it was worth the hike up; as the view at the top across to Ben Nevis and lots of other peaks was fantastic. And it even snowed a little for us on the top to add to the moment.

At the bottom of Buchaille Etive Mor
From where we parked the van, at the bottom of Buachaille Etive Mor .. I think the scene is on many a postcard!
Buchaille Etive Mor car parking area
The guys getting ready to ascend Buachaille Etive Mor .. after a few hours in the car leg stretching and changing in to mountain kit was in order.
Gulley path on Buchaille Etive Mor
We followed the gully path .. a well-defined series of steps on one side on the way up Buachaille Etive Mor. We were aiming for the snowy pass in the middle of the photo at the top.. a lot higher up than maybe it looks here 🙂
Buchaille Etive Mor Gully Path
Buachaille Etive Mor Gully Path
Views from Buchaille Etive Mor
Views from Buachaille Etive Mor .. I think Ben Nevis is jut off the shot on the far left. Car Parking way down below near the little white spec of the mountaineers bothy.
Hiking team on Buchaille Etive Mor
We had a quick rest and snacks before walking up the peak proper (behind and left of this shot) , great views from up here and a lot of residual snow on other peaks.
Hikers shelter on the peak of Buchaille Etive Mor
The hikers shelter right on the peak of Buachaille Etive Mor .. just as well as snow started to blow about in the pretty strong wind up there
Coming down off Buchaille Etive Mor
Coming down off Buachaille Etive Mor .. it had turned pretty cold by now.

So that was Buachaille Etive Mor, If I was a fitter man I would have relaxed more into it but my preoccupation was one of “and we four more of these to do tomorrow?!” It was about a four hour round trip but the slog up was worth the views at the top for sure. And coming down we saw a herd of red deer gallop across the bog below us, a great sight to end the first excursion.

Next stop, Mallaig, an overnight hostel stop then the ferry to Rum!

8 thoughts on “A hiking trip to the Isle of Rum – Part #1 – a detour up Buachaille Etive Mor”

  1. Thanks Paul.. I need to carve outs ome time to write post 2 now 🙂 And it was a great Mountain indeed!

    Cheers Chrissie, I tend to just use my phone if I’m laden rather than the ‘proper’ camera. Stops me dallying too much! (and saves the weight of course). It has a good camera though and a nice app I use (Vignette for Android) to get some nice looks. I still spend a while looking for a good angle / capture.. So I still have a great excuse to stop moving whilst really i’m just trying to get my breathe back going up hill 😉

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    • I can believe that’s pretty alarming. We only have (frequent) road running moors sheep to contend with near me, not so pretty and probably would do less damage to a car!

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      • I always say that the car occupants have at least as much chance of dying as the deer if you hit one. We have loose moorland sheep round here too – they’re particularly bad in winter when they stand in the middle of the road licking the road salt off the cats eyes!

        That first photo’s a cracker by the way!

        Reply

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