Mountain landscape - Scotland

The morning sun colours the sky pink behind Spidean Coire nan Clach, a Munro in Beinn Eighe National Nature Reserve, Scotland. The prominent notch right of centre is the Black Carls. Image © Colin Henderson Photography. Permission required before use

Spidean Coire nan Clach and the Black Carls

A majority of visitors to the Munro Spidean Coire nan Clach on the Beinn Eighe massif in Glen Torridon will turn west along the ridge for a second Munro but the ridge east, which stretches for almost 3km back towards Kinlochewe, offers a similarly fantastic ridge walk that is spiced up by what is called the Black Carls, a small series of rocky quartzite pinnacles beneath the summit of Sgurr nan Fhir Duibhe with an obvious rock step at the cleft which is visible in this image. The Black Carls scramble is commonly done as a circular route from Kinlochewe but a full traverse of Beinn Eighe would include Creag Dubh in the east, Sgurr Dubh in the middle here and Sail Mhor in the west, descending into Coire Mhic Fhearchair, which a friend I planned one Spring. (We did all the hills on the ridge apart from Sail Mhor, which makes me want to go and do it again). The trick is in having a car positioned to get you back to your start point - although you could always try and hitch a lift.

View more images from this trip on my blog - Wild camping and photography - Beinn Eighe