Sgurr nan Gabhar

With yesterday's forecast for a beautiful day, we were out early to explore the area around Sgurr nan Gabhar, the rocky peak of the goat.  It's an apt name, because the south face of the hill, seen here, is precipitous and a worthy home for goats.  On Sunday we watched two climbers enjoying its challenge.

On the north side there's a relatively easy path to the summit, which has two peaks, one slightly lower than the other.  The lower one has another of the many 'summit pools' we've found.  This photograph looks southwestwards to the small township of Achnaha, and beyond to the ridge of Beinn na h-Imeilte and the distant peak of Beinn na Seilg.

The summit of Sgurr nan Gobhar doesn't have the usual rock cairn but a single boulder planted in the ground, surrounded by a garden of heather.  By this time the temperature had risen into the low twenties, with light winds and clear views across the Minches to Muck (on the left), the peaks of Rum, Eigg (on the right) and, beyond Eigg, to the distant Cuillins of Skye.

We headed eastwards towards one of West Ardnamurchan's beautiful, secret beaches, crossing the northern slope of Meall Clach an Daraich, where we came across this bald outcrop of rock with six boulders sitting on it.  Boulders are nothing unusual around here - the last glaciation left them scattered all over the peninsula - but this little concentration seemed unusual.

Whenever we come across a feature like this, we cannot but wonder whether man had something to do with it, or whether it is, simply, a random arrangement by Nature.

The beach we headed for is covered at each high tide, so it's always pristine and always different.  It seems a sin to walk across its sands leaving boot prints - except that we know they will be swept away within a few hours.

We left the beach slightly earlier than we might have done when the Majestic Line's Glen Massan arrived and began ferrying passengers to what they had probably been told was a 'pristine' beach: we hope that, when they found our boot prints rather than the tracks of otters, they weren't too disappointed.