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Buachaille Etive Mor: until the end of the night !!

Saturday, 9. June 2017, Scotland at last !! Heading N on the A82 along Loch Lomond, the second largest lake in Great Britain after Loch Ness, I am becoming impatient. This portion of the road is winding and not too wide, but busy, not leaving many opportunities to enjoy the magnificent scenery. After the loch, it widens and heads straight N up the valley. Crianlarich, Tyndrum, Bridge of Orchy. Between these touristic villages, a void. Or should I say, beautiful, green landscapes, overlooked by the steep slopes of a few invisible munros.Then the road follows the edge of Loch Tulla before veering up the large hairpin, taking the stranger into another dimension…
The A82 crossing Rannoch Moor at sunset. Left in the distance stands Buachaille Etive Mor.

Rannoch Moor, a large moorland plateau strewn with sparkling lochs, suddenly opens. The road is now a wide ribbon of tarmac heading straight across the stunningly rough, untouched nature. The impression of space is undescribable and hardly mitigated by the steep mountain slopes which gently encircle the horizon. My heart starts beating faster and I stare wide-eyed at this wild and remote immensity. Not a building to be seen around, except at the tiny Glencoe Mountain Resort nestled about about a mile off the road to the left. And there “it” appears…

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A SCOTTISH DREAM (and a bit of my story…)

Some tough-going, high mountain ground and munros as far as the eye can see: the E ridge of Ben Starav (Scotland)

Fourteen years. Fourteen years I had not been back to Scotland. I had only been there once actually, in April 2003. An eight-day road-trip, with only two walks. Since almost a year, I keep dreaming about these wild, wide open spaces of moorlands and countless lakes and mountains, and especially these scary munros which rise so steeply above the Highlands. And now I can hear you ask: what is a munro ?

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