A Spooky Encounter on the Rib of Assynt

Assynt rib leading to Ben More Assynt (not taken on same day as my adventure) — image property of Mick Tighe, Mountain Guide

It is wet and breezy today and my mind whisks me back to a solo trip I made more than twenty years ago, over two remote mountains in Assynt, way up in the very north west corner of Scotland; Conival, 987 metres, hill of the joining and Ben More Assynt, 998 metres, the big hill of Assynt.

That day was cool and reasonably dry, with a gust of hair-ruffling wind every now and then, as I sauntered up Gleann Dubh, host to the River Traligill . The sun, by occasionally peeking out from behind scudding clouds, enticed me to continue.

Towards the top of the glen I left the main track and headed over to my left where I encountered the first strenuous part of my day, a steep rocky section into cloud at the foot of Conival. As I sweated up the straightforward acclivity towards the summit, the cloud was thickening.

I emerged onto the summit in a blanket of dark glowering clouds, completely covering my route and reducing visibility to a few yards. The big hill of Assynt was innocent of my gaze, as was just about everything else.

My mind then drifted to the thoughts of philosopher, Immanuel Kant who argued, to the best of my failing memory;

‘appearances are not absolutely real, because their existence depend on human perceivers,’

I took a minute to ponder Kant’s wisdom on such matters.

But we ‘Kant’ always be influenced by philosophers, no matter how gifted. Sometimes we need to take a risk and experience life on the edge. So I got out my map and compass, fixed a bearing and trudged on.

As I moved forward, the ground exposed itself, bit by bit, revealing an obvious narrow ramp, with steep flanks. A slightly twisted, undulating ridge, not knife edged. I remember thinking, ‘the rib of Assynt’.

Whatever it looked like did not change the task that lay in front of my booted feet. Picking my way over shattered, unstable quartzite scree and jutting crags required care, even on a calm day.

This was anything but a calm day, and as I progressed through very limited visibility, the wind ratcheted up a few notches on the meteorologist scale; ‘boisterous through raging to seriously fierce’.

On some sections the gusts were so powerful I had to lie down and embrace the rocks. Other times I stood with my back to the blast, leaning over onto my single walking pole to keep my balance. It was screaming and relentless.

Despite all that, it was spectacular in so many ways; not least the seemingly endless and ghostly grey clouds, streaming up from the valley on my right, where, about six hundred yards down, lay dubh-loch mòr. (the big black loch).

It was then it dawned on me, this was not just weather, it was something more sinister and it was no coincidence that clinging, dark menacing overhead cloud had descended onto the ridge to blanket out visibility and keep the sun away.

The grey twisted ribbons that urgently and unrelentingly streamed up the steep south flank from dubh-loch mòr to curl past me, clinging to the contours of the hill before plunging down the north flank, were not clouds. They were the tendrils of wraiths and they were stalking my every move, seriously intent on ejecting me from their domain.

I was an unwitting interloper who had stumbled into their sacred place on this, their day of days.

Not only was the intimidation visual, it was also audible, evidenced by the ear piercing and disorienting screeching. Had I entered the realm of keening Banshees?

As I carefully moved forward the wraiths got more and more furious at my audacity and threw all they could at me.

I was the only human on the ridge, so the wraiths could vent their spleen directly at me. The last few yards of my journey to the exposed summit were executed in a crawl, occasionally jamming my body between broken rocks to keep me on the ridge as the screaming wind section of nature’s extensive orchestra continued to discourage my attendance in their domain.

For another obscure moment my mind took me to the Bob Dylan song, “Lay Down Your Weary Tune.” Being serenaded by the Assynt wind section is something I will never forget.

I did not linger long and, after a few minutes sitting at the summit with my back jammed against one rock and a foot jammed against another, I exited stage left and gingerly headed back along the ridge.

Then a remarkable thing happened.

The wraiths acknowledged their failure to scare me from their sacred place and, as though on some unseen, unheard, flourish of an unseen conductor’s baton, off they swirled to perform their ghostly deeds in some other venue and ‘put the wind up’ some other unsuspecting soul.

Within an instant all was calm, the clouds moved over, the sun broke through, and I was gazing over the wild expanses of Sutherland and to Caithness, over Loch Shin to Ben Klibreck and snuggled below it, so bright in the sunshine, a small white spot in that wilderness: The Crask Inn. The Inn was built in 1815, the same year Napoleon and Wellington battled it out at Waterloo. Four years later Thomas Telford upgraded the single track road that supplied it with travellers and still does. I had stayed in the Inn before, and would enjoy its friendship again.

My wraith-free trek back along the ridge, over Conival and down Gleann Dubh to my transport at Inchnadamph was bathed in a wonderful evening glow.

Looking back to Conival (not taken on same day as my adventure) — image property of Mick Tighe, Mountain Guide

Is that one of the rewards of braving it out, of engaging an element of risk, perhaps discomfort, of being on the edge? Well, if that was not one of the rewards, what followed certainly was.

Before I reached my car, fate intervened by way of the occupier of a cottage in the glen; a perfect stranger. He had just finished fitting a brass ship’s porthole in his front door and was admiring his handiwork when I ‘hove to’. We exchanged greetings and he asked if I needed a refreshment. I did not have the heart to refuse.

On entering the remote cottage I was met by an idyllic moment in this remote corner of these British Isles. Mine host’s wife was sitting by the west facing window knitting, her work and lovely features illuminated by the pastel pink embers of the evening sun.

The refreshment involved the opening of a bottle of ‘uisge beatha’, and the rest is history.

I cannot describe how uplifting such unexpected encounters with seriously decent people can be. My faith in human nature again restored.

It is not always about the mountain.