‘You’d be pushed to find a more soul-stirring landscape in Scotland’: walking in Beinn Eighe

2026-03-23 - 07:19

It isn’t only climbers who get misty-eyed about the awe-inspiring mountains and ancient pinewoods of Britain’s first national nature reserve, created 75 years ago The waymarked quartzite path glimmers in the sun, flanked by amber-gold grassland. Beyond, one of Scotland’s finest landscapes opens up before me, a woodland of ancient Caledonian pines leading my eye to the metallic glint of Loch Maree. On the other side of the water, a winding river separates the steep, stacked rocks of Beinn a’Mhùinidh from Slioch, one of the great mountains of Wester Ross, rising to a knuckle ridge of Torridonian sandstone. I’m walking the four-mile mountain trail looping through Beinn Eighe national nature reserve (NNR), Britain’s first NNR, which celebrates its 75th anniversary this year. In a crowded list, you’d be hard pushed to find a more soul-stirring landscape in all of Scotland. Continue reading...