Cuillin Ridge 2007; Bidean Druim Nan Ramh
Saturday16 June 2007
Bidean Druim Nan Ramh 10 hour walk/scramble
Rain comes in the night, and the shutters are banging in the wind. We closed them at evening to make it darker as there are no curtains and we are nearly at the longest day. We noticed last night that it only gets dark about 11.30 and then comes light again at 3.30. In the morning the rain stops and after a leisurely two breakfasts we go out, heading North up Loch Coruisk, essaying the scramble on the nether parts of Bidean nam Ranh ridge, deciding that it is too committing, so walking this long long ridge about 5 kilometers long. One down climb, described in the guide book as Grade 1 is very intimidating. We descend by a steep scree slope that we are able to run on and there is an extremely long walk back to the hut. We get back about 9pm
there is a very detailed account of this walk here on Scottish Hills Forums
J.A. MacCulloch in his book ‘the Misty isles of Skye’ (1904) describes this group of mountains –
These mountains are unique in Britain. The fifteen great peaks and the many smaller ones stand closely packed together in an area which is little more than six miles long and six miles broad. The broken flanks of each peak are inextricably mingled with those of the surrounding heights. They fit into each other, they rise out of each other, sweeping up skywards as if to breathe more freely ; and nature could not get another in if she tried. Two great corries, Harta Corrie and Coire Uisg, with Loch Coruisk at its lower end, run right up into the heart of this mass of mountains, and are separated by the long and massive ridge of Druim-nan-Ramh, which terminates in the high peaks of Bidein Druim-nan- Ramh. In these wild corries silence reigns, and ”mi awful hush is felt audibly,’ save when the tempests boom among the peaks, or a fall of stones, loosened by rain and frost, crashes down some precipice, wakening thundering echoes as they go. Round them the hills with their sphinx-like stony faces are huddled disorderly, each one gazing down upon you, as it seems, half-pityingly, half-threateningly.
The outer summits of this great mountain group are clothed with coarse vegetation up to a certain height. Beyond that they are mere broken faces of stone, made up of precipices gashed with deep ravines, boulder-strewn slopes, jagged pinnacles and crags. Within that outer ring, the desolation is complete. Save for a few rare Alpine plants, or an occasional patch of brilliant green which makes you wonder how it came there, all is sheer rock, black, wrinkled, chaotic, torn and shattered into every conceivable shape. You seem to stand in nature’s primeval workshop; here are the very bones of the old earth.
not at home 