Stefan Durkacz

The summer doldrums: a month after the solstice, the growing and raising mostly done, the season is sliding down the far side in a blaze of heat, haze and heather pollen. Clouds of the stuff coat my shoes and make my mouth dry on the moors above Blair Atholl. I went to climb Ben Vuirich, a big hill (903 metres) but totally overshadowed by the massive and complex mountain of Beinn a'Ghlo just to the north. A weekday and an unpretentious, self-effacing heathery lump of a hill, so solitude aplenty. But Hamish Brown writes that 'Ben Vuirich may be unobtrusive but it has the common magic of all mountains' and he's not wrong. The approach from the west, once off the Beinn a'Ghlo path which I biked along for a few miles, is a long trackless plod. The route passed lonely Loch Valigan. I stopped for lunch near a little tarn with a panorama of Beinn a'Ghlo, its curves and sweeping ridges and scree-covered flanks filling the view across the glen. So many insects this year,...

Enough arthouse hills - time for a blockbuster! Ben Nevis is not renowned for its weather, so I decided to jump at the chance of a free day in the midst of this preternatural spell of fine summer weather. It had to be something new, something big, something with with plenty to goggle at -  so, Ben Nevis by the Carn Mor Dearg arete it was. Climbing, sweating, drinking like a fish, fighting the heat, nursing cramped legs, scrambling, scraping shins on granite, gawping at vertigo-inducing cliffs, catching the shouts of climbers, peering down on the distant roof of the CIC hut, sun-baked ranks of mountains to the horizon... I even got a little dose of solitude towards the end of the day. Heading for the Allt a'Mhuillin path, I peeled off the congested tourist trail down Ben Nevis and headed north above Lochan Meall an t-Suidhe, and was quickly enveloped by the sunlit peace of the moor. By the Allt a'Mhuillin I stopped for a final brew, just to watch the water, rocks and sky for a w...