TORS & TABLES, A TRIP ROUND BEN AVON

Ben Avon has rock tors scattered all over it like refugees from Dartmoor, some of them quite tricky and one requiring a graded rock climb. It has a greater area over 3000 feet than any other Scottish hill and in Munro's original list the mountain had 11 tops. Munro himself deleted one and the 1981 revision saw off another five. Most of the tops removed have been ones crowned by rock tors so now only two of the Munro Tops need hands, the main summit and the jagged crest of East Meur Gorm Craig. If you were conspiracy-minded you could see this as a nefarious plot by ageing Keepers of the List to make bagging easier, but as usual there's a much more prosaic explanation. Munro put in several rock tors without much reascent as they were distinctive landmarks, while rounded tops needed much more drop to be included. Now that we have better maps there is much more emphasis on exact drop rather than visual prominence so the rounded tops have survived the excisions whereas the tors have been deleted.

Inchrory at the mouth of Glen Builg

Even though you don't get a tick for them any more I would still highly recommend a tour of the plateau to visit the tors. I reckon there are a couple of dozen that are independent enough to count, including one I missed out last time and one I failed to get to the top of. From the road this would be a huge day so a better plan is to camp at the mouth of Glen Builg, a lovely spot. It's still a biggish day, around 30km with 1400 metres of ascent.

Clach Bhan, the LH slot goes through to the pool

There is an excellent stalkers path up onto Meall Gaineimh, which has a long thin double-summitted tor, only slightly lower than its rounded summit dome. Just east of this there are three tors around Clach Bhan, one of which has a pool hidden away inside it. Clach Bhan means "the women's stone" and for centuries pregnant women used to walk up to it to bathe in the pool, which supposedly ensured a safe labour. Once there they had to squeeze through a narrow slot which emerges into the pool, then swim across to get out. Tomintoul locals had a sideline in taking them up Glen Avon to Inchrory by horse and cart but from there they had to walk, about 2 miles and 1500 feet of ascent. According to the NHS website "There is evidence that active women are less likely to experience problems in later pregnancy and labour" so the superstition maybe had some substance to it!

Clach Bhan pool, with the slot opposite

Interestingly there is also a Clach Bhàn lower down in Glen Avon and there is some dispute as to whether this was the scene of the ritual in question. There is an eyewitness account from 1836 of the "chairing" at Clach Bhan of 12 women who had walked all the way from Speyside, about 20 miles, and Historic Environment Scotland considers that this refers to the lower site. The distance from Speyside is about right for the lower stone but the description fits the higher one better. Timothy Pont's map of 1614 marks the higher Clach Bhan but not the lower one, while Robson in 1814 mentions the pool so he meant the higher spot too. The clincher for me is that the Banffshire Name Books from 1867-9 mention the lower rock and just describe it as a "large white stone". Clach Bhàn means White Stone, while Clach Bhan means Rock of the Women. The modern OS maps put an accent on both, although the 1872 version only puts the accent on the lower one, almost certainly correctly. A recent article on Gaelic in Moray by Iain Mac an Tailleir published by Sabhal Mor Ostaig mentions both places (with the right accents, of course) and attributes the pregnancy story to the higher one.

East Meur Gorm Craig, with Meall Gaineimh behind

From Clach Bhan you need to descend the west flank to pick up the awkwardly placed Clach Fiaraidh (which is the one I haven't visited yet), then go back up and along the lovely rock spine of East Meur Gorm Craig. This has two fairly independent tors just below the ridge on the west, one needing quite a hard and exposed move to reach.

Next is the isolated tall rock next to the summit of Big Brae. This provides a dilemma for baggers of Deleted Munro Tops (they do exist – hi Mark 🙂) as it's impossible to tell whether Munro meant the tor or the nearby higher mound, the modern spot height. Munro didn't give grid references and just described it as 1.5 miles west of Loch Builg, with only an estimated height from the artist Colin Philip. The one inch hill-shaded map of the time gave Big Brae lots of hachures and named it prominently, which seemed to matter to Munro originally. He deleted it before his death, or possibly James Gall Inglis did (the 1921 tables don't distinguish between their contributions). My guess is that Munro included it because it was so prominent on the 1 inch map, then deleted it once he had visited and seen how insignificant it was. If he did mean the higher mound then it deserves a prize as the least impressive summit that has ever featured in the list (and there's some stiff competition in that field). The spike is a far better summit, quite a striking feature in such a flat place, and the Database of British and Irish Hills counts it as the Deleted Top. It wasn't marked on any of the maps available to Munro though, so you could argue that the mound should count instead. Now how many angels can I get onto that pin.....🙄

West Meur Gorm Craig and Lochan nan Gabhar

Nearby West Meur Gorm Craig is one of the more distinct of Ben Avon's summits and has been able to hang onto its Munro Top status. It does have a summit tor but it's pretty unimpressive – you can get up it without needing hands. The view is excellent though, and a brief detour westwards gets you an even better one, looking out over the green Lochan nan Gabhar 250 metres below. From here you head up the broad shoulder of Mullach Lochan nan Gabhar towards the main summit but as it flattens out swing left towards the bunch of tors on the south-eastern arm of the plateau. The first of these has stolen the name of the spur a kilometre away and bagging lists refer to it as Mullach Lochan nan Gabhar. In this case it was Munro himself that was responsible, an early example of the now common list maker's sin of moving names about.

Ben Avon summit tor, with Clach Choutsaich behind

The middle tor of the three is Clach Choutsaich, the hardest top to reach of those on the plateau proper. It has never featured in Munro's Tables but is very distinctive, a tall narrow tower sitting in a fairly level area about a kilometre east of the main summit. The first time I climbed it was in a snowy November and I failed on my initial attempt, having to go down and find an easier way. Jack Ewing and I were walking from Glen Gairn to Loch Morlich as part of an EUMC Mystery Meet. These were trips where you weren't told where you were going to be dropped until you were halfway there. You were then given a badly photocopied map with the location of any bothies marked and pick up times for spots a couple of days walk away. We crossed Ben Avon and Beinn a' Bhuird, then I detoured south to include Beinn Bhreac and got caught in the first white out I had ever experienced. There was so much spindrift hammering past that I couldn't even see my feet! Getting down to Etchachan Hut was a challenge. Luckily the storm blew itself out overnight and we had a stunning day walking out over Beinn Meadhoin and Cairn Gorm in very icy conditions. I didn't have crampons then and some places were a sheet of ice, only negotiable by hopping across between protruding boulders.

Garbh Choire from Ben Avon

Stuc Gharbh Mhor, the third tor in the group, is an example of migrating tops. Munro picked the OS spot height on the county boundary as his top, but in 1974 James Donaldson moved it to the slightly lower but more visually prominent rock tor 500m south, which Hamish Brown then deleted in 1981. To get from there to the next tor on the round you have to cross the deeply incised side glen of Allt an Eas Mhoir (the Meikle Eas), or make quite a long contour around it. I was once very glad of the rapidly available shelter the glen provides when caught on the main summit with a group by a particularly vicious hailstorm. We used it to make a rapid escape, but then had an interesting crossing of the River Gairn as the bridge had been washed away

Stob Dubh an Eas Bhig

Stob Dubh an Eas Bhig is a perky little pointed top, without much drop to it but a very distinct summit. In winter it's a nice looking wart surrounded by acres of snow, slightly reminiscent of the Balmenhorn on Monte Rosa. Munro underestimated its altitude by around 150 feet, not surprising when you look at the maps he was working from, but it's obvious which summit he meant. On the way to the main summit you pass the prominent South Tor. This didn't attract Munro's attention but has turned up on a couple of recent lists, the late Ken Whyte's Simm Beags and Alan Dawson's High Hills of Britain. It's got 18 metres of drop so is quite a sizeable feature and worth a visit.

Leabaidh an Daimh Bhuidhe, the summit tor

The summit tor, Leabaidh an Daimh Bhuidhe (the couch of the yellow stag), is one of the easier tors, but even it can be tricky in the wet or in winter. Its two major summits are close enough in height for many to want to climb both of them to make sure, neither of them being completely easy. In 1788 a Braemar woman called Effie Murray found a 49lb cairngorm (smoky quartz) stone nearby, still the largest ever found. She got £40 for it from Invercauld Estate (about £7500 today), and it is still in Braemar Castle. In the early 1800's there were 25 people making a living digging for minerals on Ben Avon but the supply is now largely exhausted and modern cairngorms mostly come from Brazil or Switzerland.

Clach Bun Rudhtair

An easy high level stroll takes you past the North Tor (North-East really) and round to Stob Bac an Fhuarain, another deleted Munro Top. If you're being really exhaustive then there's a minor tor (as opposed to a minotaur?😁) just off to the east as well. A steep shoulder leads down to the three spikes of Clach Bun Rudhtair, the most dramatic top on the mountain, which used to be known as The Needles. The two outer spikes are easy scrambles but the Centre Tor is a contender for the hardest top in the Cairngorms (I would give the Barns of Bynack the palm, but not by much). There are two 'easy' routes, both about Diff. One climbs a sustained gully/groove on the north-east corner to a platform, then thrutches up a wide crack. The other, first recorded by Richard Frere in the 1940's, starts up overhanging jugs inside a cave on the south-west side, exits through a hole in the roof then uses wide cracks to reach the platform. I tried both and felt that although I was OK with soloing up them in walking boots I didn't fancy soloing back down them. I plan on going back with a pair of rock boots and a short rope. The three tors have produced 13 fairly recent climbs, mostly steep wide cracks at E1-E4. It's never going to be a popular spot, and to date only four visits to the crag have been recorded on UK Climbing.

Clach Bun Rudhtair centre tor

From Clach Bun Rudhtair an easy ridge leads northwards before you have to do a rough crossing of the Caol Ghleann to reach the track in Glen Avon. It's then a couple of easy miles back to the mouth of Glen Builg, passing the lovely falls at Linn of Avon, where the river gets compressed into a narrow chute before dropping into a lovely green pool, a perfect spot for a swim at the end of the day.

Linn of Avon