I've been enjoying picking my three favourite UK mountains.
I'm sorry to have to exclude Beinn Eighe' wild coires and bony fingers, An Teallach's pinnacles and it's stunning coire head wall, Snowdon for its majestic build-up, Bhuichaille Etive Mor and Bowfell for their pyramidal impact. I can't include the Ben, despite its magnificent N face because so much of the mountain is dull. Likewise the plucky protuberance of Tryfan which kneels at the foot of a bigger parent. So here goes.
Number 3 is Bidean nam Bian. Who can fail to gasp as they drop down from the meeting of the waters and behold the three sisters, with SCNL beyond, piercing the clouds with its noble spire. Best in May when the snow drapes the high cliffs while spring climbs into the hidden valley. If this fastness is a fascinating retreat from the binoculars aimed across the valley floor, then its sister valley below the towering cliffs of SCNL presents at its remote head the most Alpine of settings on the mainland.
Liathach is at number 2. It was a toss up with An Teallach but the Grey One overwhelms with its fortifications while the Forge shies away as if embarrassed by its armoury. Seen from Loch Clair, Liathach presents the most formidable mountain form in the land. Like a dinosaur frozen in stone. A prehistoric battleship. Climb me if you dare.
So often a bold front reveals a soft backside but, on this occasion and from every angle and on every side, this mountain roars its defiance of our dreams of conquest. What joy that the summit scramble delivers such delight along with its hypnotic panoramas. This Stegosaurus has a spine to match.
And so to my number 1. Ask any child to draw a mountain and they will outline a bold pyramid. And so, childlike, I give you, as my favourite mountain, Skye's own Pic, its Dent, its Horn, Sgurr nan Gillean.
No summit arrests from every angle like SnG. From the minute I set eyes on it, as a humble walker reared on Wainwright's guides, and with that author's timidity, it has held my attention and inspired my love. Yet, if a mountain is to inspire, it must also intimidate. And here is a peak that on all three of its soaring, jagged ridges presents forbidding obstacles to the walker that prove to be joyous outings for the scrambler, silhouetted against the stunning arc of the Cuillin and the glowing ocean beyond. That there is no easy way to such a prominent summit endows the mountain with a unique purity. To gain the top itself, to perch as an eagle in its eerie as the cliffs fall way on all sides, is to declare it incomparably the finest looking-post in this land.
Every route up the imposing pyramid feels other-worldly. Is this really Scotland and not Corsica or Cortina? Yes, SnG, more than any other peak in these isles, this is a mountain.
Post edited at 22:31