A Special View

The summit of Creag an Airgid is almost exactly in the centre of the western end of Ardnamurchan and we climb it fairly frequently because it offers one of the best views on the peninsula.

It's not a particularly high ben, and its slopes are a steep and slippery slog up from the Sanna road, but it's one of those hills which, as you wind your way higher and higher, offers constantly changing views - this one southwestwards, with Beinn na Seilg's summit lost on cloud and two lochans visible, Ealachan at left and Crannaig towards the right. The ridge in sunlight is Beinn nan Ord.

The BBC weather service had forecast a perfect morning but the cloud persisted, sitting low across the Sound of Mull and, occasionally, bringing us a thin, cold rain, but the visibility, when the clouds cleared, was almost perfect, the clean air....

....ideal for lichen. I have no idea what this particular one is but it seems to be in full 'flower' on the higher slopes at the moment.

This is the view we think is so special. The road snakes away across moorland between, if you look closely, old fields with the characteristic rig-and-furrow striping, evidence that this area was once much more heavily populated. The road passes through the township of Achnaha with its white-painted houses and then bears away to the right on its way to Sanna. The hill that dominates the middle distance is Meall Sanna - so clear we felt we could almost reach out and touch it - and just to its right is one of the houses of Sanna....

....which, as we watched, was picked out by a brief-lived rainbow.