It was a long walk in to the mountain, the red mountain so-called, though the stone was mostly weathered a silvery grey. Dark shadowed cliffs loomed up beside me as I wound my way up the glen, a bonny brown burn running beneath them, rushing over boulders and dropping off ledges in frothy white streams. At the foot of the steepest cliff, cradled in a corrie, lay a shallow lochan, its floor half-covered in soft weed which shone a gentle green in the sunlight.
I walked on, zigzagging up to the bealach below the summit, veering off the path halfway up to investigate a huge white stripe in the hillside which turned out to be a hefty vein of quartz. There had been lumps and flakes of quartz dotting the path and slim veins embedded in occasional boulders but this was a whole slab of quartz, a huge shelf of it. Big chunks lay broken loose beneath it, their edges razor-sharp as if freshly splintered. Indeed the whole mass of it looked newly formed, brittle and bright and clean. Its texture was slightly rough to the touch but shiny, like the glassy glaze of congealed snow.
I looked up at the cliffs beneath the summit ridge, which were close now. Another short stripe of quartz cut high up across them and on the grassy slopes above were slung a couple of swathes of snow. Eager for coolness on this hot day, I scrambled upwards, following the improbable stone wall which climbed from a lochan on the bealach straight up the side of the hill almost to the summit before turning neatly to the right to run above the cliffs. As I ascended, the mountain reddened, the grey rock underfoot giving way to a peachy-orange tint where the stones had been disturbed or the ground worn by footfall. I understood its name now but it was the whiteness which most compelled me and after resting at the summit cairn, I headed back to the wall, clambering over a gap to take a handful and mouthful of snow.
Refreshed, I continued alongside the wall. Well-weathered and evidently very old, it was in remarkably good shape, six foot high in stretches and running for several miles with only occasional collapsed sections. I marvelled at it as I followed its seemingly endless length down the westward spine of the mountain: a single skin construction of large heavy slabs stacked mostly vertically; huge slabs, although they wouldn’t have had to carry them far given the boulderfield the wall ran through. I held onto the wall frequently for physical and moral support as I picked my down the horizontal maze of prone stone until finally it ended at a rusted iron fence post, and I scrambled and slid down the steep heathery slopes to join the path again.
Covered in sweat and mud and presumably ticks, I looked for a place to cross the burn and came upon a little scooped pool where the water settled before tipping over a smooth lip. Sheltered from almost every angle, I stripped off and slipped in, letting the water lap over me, soothing my heated, scratched skin as the evening sun slid slowly down the sky.
I watched the white froth of the water entering the pool and felt with my foot the small vein of quartz that flowed through the pool’s floor, and thought of the snow, the memory of it cold on my tongue. What height, what whiteness! If the summit was the peak of the walk, this was its delicious denouement. And yet it was when ambling back down the path and re-entering the forestry plantation at the foot of the glen that I was most utterly enthralled.
To my right, amid the tall conifers, was a walled enclosure. Small ruined buildings edged its southern side but the wall itself was mostly intact and held a small field almost entirely carpeted in bluebells. I walked in and stood in a small clearing in the centre. The sun was leaving and in the cool shadow, the colour seemed to hover, scented, in the air.
I stood there for some time, a contentment settling upon me, and such a sense of peace, of deep blue peace. I could have stood there forever. All the glories of the day gathered there in the evening light, in the frilly blue haze, which was punctuated here and there with small patches of white. I wondered what the white flower could be but on looking closer discovered it was clutches of bluebells, pure white bluebells, the tender curls of their living flesh breathing in the field with me, the softest and finest of all the day’s treasures.
Beinn Dearg, Loch Broom, Wester Ross, Scotland
15th May 2024
