Corbett bagging: Beinn Udlaidh and Beinn Bhreac-liath

While walking the two Corbetts in Glen Orchy, Beinn Udlaidh and Beinn Bhreac-liath, I started thinking about the ingredients for a great mountain day in Scotland.

Currently, my goal is the list of the 222 Corbetts. These are Scottish summits of between 2500ft and 3000ft elevation.

So, top of my list for a great mountain day in Scotland is bagging a new Corbett.

Brilliantly, the walk of Beinn Udlaidh and Beinn Bhreac-liath includes two Corbetts.

Next, I am hoping for good weather.

Although heavy rain accompanied my friend Ben and I all the way to the start of the walk – and kept us sitting inside the car for five minutes after parking – the day was amazingly free of rain. There was strong winds are higher elevation but we have experienced worse, for sure!

Overall it wasn’t the best weather, but it was better than forecast. We enjoyed some fairly clear views, a stunning rainbow and some warm-ish spells of sunshine.

I like a circuit rather than an out-and-back walk.

These Corbetts offered the chance for a nice circuit.

I love a path, track, stalker’s path or a distinct trod. This makes it far easier to navigate and it’s a lot less fatiguing than tramping over rough ground.

More than half of this walk of Beinn Udlaidh and Beinn Bhreac-liath is on very rough terrain. There was a track to start with, but as soon as we headed on to the first slope we had to negotiate tussocks, bracken and avoid lots of tree holes and wet and boggy ground.

The first slope was very steep, too, and this made it quite a chore to climb.

Descriptions of the route suggested this section would be testing – and it was.

However, after the first summit, we could see long sections of a trod ahead. We followed a trod down to the bealach between the Corbetts, then for some of the climb to the next Corbett summit.

After the second summit there was “on-off trod”, followed by a muddy descent path and then a fabulous wide track back along the glen and beside a beautiful river.

I think this final section of track saved the overall rating of the walk when thinking about path-track-trod quality.

I am always hopeful of fantastic views. The Corbetts reveal some of the best views of Scottish mountains because they can so often bring a great perspective of the Munros, the taller Scottish mountains.

Ben and I were very fortunate to enjoy some lovely views of many surrounding mountain peaks and including the likes of Ben Lui and Ben Oss, as well as Beinn Dorain.

We also spotted three stags and were treated to a superb rainbow.

In addition, autumn painted the landscape and foliage a brilliant palette of colourful hues.

I very much like some notable sights and surprises on my Corbetts.

As well as the stags, Beinn Udlaidh has a quartzite dyke that starts at the summit and heads down to the glen. That is pretty cool.

Good chat is a vital for a good walk in Scotland.

I recently lost my mum – she passed away only three weeks ago and while I ran the Two Breweries Hill Race – while Ben’s brother also died of cancer earlier this summer.

Ben and I always have lots to talk about because we are a similar age, went to school together, have grown up kids and we share similar interests – ie bagging Corbetts, Munros, Donalds, etc. We enjoyed almost non-stop conversation on this walk and I was grateful for that. In fact, we usually have non-stop chat – apart from when the weather is against us – and so this Corbett walk scored well.

In fact, our chat on the descent was about the rating of the walk. We decided it’s difficult to rate walks because there are so many factors. Even so, we rated the walk as a 6/10 on the final descent. But as we walked back along the glen, the rating increased to 7/10.

Then, compared to the Quinag trio of Corbetts, we sent it back to 6.5/10. But then we thought about the autumn colours, the rainbow and the stags and again rated the route a 7/10.

In summary, it was a good day out in the mountains.