Beinn Damh - a Torridon Corbett

Climbed by year and month

Climbed by year and month

Beinn Dàmh (Ben Damph) means the hill of the stag, and is a Corbett (just missing out on munro status at 903m) just south of Torridon village. It's lower slopes are of woodland and waterfalls on the Allt Coire Roill, then peat bog, increasingly rocky with some Torridonian sandstone and then capped with quartzite boulders and scree.

I started from the car park of the Torridon Inn where the entrance sign says "Torridon outdoors and walking routes", so I figured they wouldn't be too put out by me parking Gerty the camper there even though I wasn't a customer. Walking through the buildings to the path a staff member even said "hello", still felt odd. There's a new deer fence around the resort and gate onto the road, we crossed and started on the path through the woods. I let Skye loose as soon as we were away from the road. Surprisingly with a lack of breeze the midges weren't too bad, only a couple of bites maybe by the time we got out of the trees and onto the moorland. I hadn't bothered with Smidge but had a bottle with me in case.

Out of the trees, and into the light breeze, the view opened out to the north, the Torridon giants of Beinn Alligin, Liathach and Beinn Eighe all came into view, as well as down to upper Loch Torridon and Torridon village. It felt good to be out but I was uncertain if I'd complete the walk, I was struggling a little. Just had to remember to slow down and keep putting one foot in front of the other. As we gained height the path deteriorated a bit becoming quite boggy in places. My, relatively, new shoes felt good, being unlined I soon got a wet foot but it didn't matter, synthetic socks for the win. Just before reaching the col there's a quite steep gully sprinkled with scree, Skye romps up it and looks down on me, carefully picking my up, with impatience. Jessie used to do the same, it pulled at my heart strings. On the col the view is fantastic. Loch Damh below, with Loch Kishorn and Beinn Bhan to the south west. This is what I'm out here for, the long views. I have one of my small bars of chocolate in the hope it'll help, and we carry on. Bearing left from the col, first south and then SSE, we start climbing a sweeping ridge towards Creagan Dubh Toll nam Biast.

Our path soon leaves the crest of the ridge and skirts along south west facing slopes in a rising traverse. This slightly airy path is rough with prominent rocks so striding along is quite difficult, I stop to admire the view often. Skye is way ahead but stays in view. Beinn Damh summit is hidden from view behind Spidean Toll nam Biast which we will have to climb. It's covered in quartzite boulders, small cairns mark a sort of path or two among the rocks but they aren't easy to spot. I head in the general direction of a cairn on the skyline and find the others as I make progress. Skye skips over the boulders with ease.

We get onto the summit of Spidean Toll nam Biast and see there's a slight drop to a col and an interesting looking ascent to Beinn Damh's summit. The chocolate certainly helped psychologically, or maybe physically, I don't care which at this point and just carry on plodding my way down to the col and up the other side. The ridge narrows a bit and our loose path threads it's way up quite close to the cliffs on our left hand side. The view is sensational! I found this last bit the easiest and it wasn't long before we got to the summit.

The return was uneventful, just felt like it dragged on somewhat.