Bynack Mor Wild Walks

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I've just come through the Pass of Ryvoan

between Glenmore and Abernethy in the Cairngorms.

It's a path that once resounded to the sound of stolen cattle.

The route was known as the Rathad nam Meirleach, the Caterans' Road,

and it was used by freebooters from Lochaber

who made their way through here

to raid and plunder the rich pasture lands of Moray.

Now, I'm not going as far as Moray today.

At this point here I'm going to leave the Caterans' Road,

head off to the right, up into the Cairngorms,

to climb a hill I've become very familiar with over the years.

It's called Bynack Mor.

Over the years, Bynack Mor has become my, sort of,

bad weather alternative hill.

It lies in the rain shadow of the higher Cairngorms,

so when the southwesterlies are lashing rain

across the Cairngorm plateau, Bynack More is quite often nicely sheltered.

On windy days it pays to be a wee bit more circumspect, though.

You'd think the sort of elephantine bulk of Cairngorm would

protect Bynack Mor from the worst of the winds,

but that's not always the case, and we might discover that today.

Once you come through the Pass of Ryvoan

you get this wonderful sense of spaciousness.

On one side, the slopes rise up to the high tops of the Cairngorms,

but on the other side it's total contrast.

You get the vastness of the Abernethy Forest rolling on

and rolling on to infinity.

It's a great and wonderful nature reserve

owned and managed by the RSPB, and I just love it.

I love the wee lochans cradled in the hollows.

I love the, sort of, grumbling cackle of the red grouse.

I love the scattering of Caledonian pines.

Oh, I feel really at home here, you know. It's just great.

There you go, that's our first glimpse of Bynack Mor itself.

Just lifting her head up there, its white snow-covered slopes

in stark contrast with the heather-covered slopes

of the foreground hills, and it looks cold too.

I've been climbing the hill following the route of the Lairig an Laoigh,

one of the old mouth routes of the Cairngorms.

Up until the middle of the 19th century,

it's a route that would have been well used

by cattle drovers or shepherds with their great flocks of sheep

heading south to the big markets, places like Crieff or Falkirk.

Today, it's very popular amongst hill walkers

as one of the through-routes of the Cairngorms

along with the possibly more popular, certainly higher and more rugged,

Lairig Ghru, which lies to the west.

But at this point here I'm going to leave the Lairig an Laoigh and

I'm going to head up the final summit slopes of Bynack Mor behind me.

They look pretty snow-covered.

They look quite icy. It's getting windier and windier.

So it might be just a bit interesting and maybe even a bit challenging.

Bynack Mor actually has two summits separated by a long shallow col.

The westernmost summit is called Bynack Beag,

or the "small bynack".

Until, probably the early last century the hill was known

as Ben Bynack, but a prominent Gaelic scholar from nearby Nethy Bridge,

the Reverend William Forsyth,

reckoned that was a bad use of the Gaelic.

He believed the name of the mountain was Beinn Eigg.

That comes from the cleft in the rocks,

the summit rocks that can you see from Nethy Bridge.

Other scholars believed that the mountain is actually called

Beinn Beag, or the "small mountain", and that seems a wee bit strange

given that this hill is 1,090 meters high.

But I suppose, in comparison with its much bigger Cairngorm neighbours,

you could be excused for referring to it as the "small mountain".

'Small it may be, but this wind stopped us completely in our tracks.'

Ah, dear. We're kind of in the lee of the wind here.

You go up there and this, sort of, fabulous neve, you think it's great.

Then you get to the summit ridge

and the wind's blowing like a demented banshee.

As soon as I put my head over,

it's like a heavyweight boxer just giving me a punch.

You can't stand on the ridge. The wind is so strong.

I think the wind has been building up during the course of the day.

It's just hard to believe that down in Ryvoan it was

actually quite balmy and we were looking up here saying it looks interesting.

But I think to try and go on along the ridge just would have been stupid.

There's no shame in turning back.

It's been a great day and I think I'm just going to head down now.

The summit will still be there next month.

It'll still be there next year. Still be there in ten years.

I just hope I am!