If you gaze up at the Arran mountains from the ferry terminal at Brodick, the left edge of the range is bookended by a pyramid of near vertical rock. This dank east face is sliced by fissures, and culminates in a perfect summit cone. Walkers normally take in the summit of Beinn Nuis as part of the “Three Beinns” circuit, and the 792m high peak is frequently overlooked by Corbett baggers (it doesn’t make the grade thanks to proximity to its bigger neighbor, Beinn Tarsuinn), but this shapely peak deserves a closer look.
Almost everyone who climbs Beinn Nuis will begin and end their journey in Glen Rosa, which has the distinction of being one of the loveliest glens in Scotland. There’s a huge bog to be crossed, and a river that runs out of Coire a Bhradain that can be tricky in spate, before beginning a stiff, breathless climb up the higher slopes of the mountain. As you ascend, all the while the ground drops away steeply to the right until you are edging along a cliff top path.
The sudden verticality of the peak is evident, and it becomes depressingly understandable that not one but three aircraft met tragic ends here during the second world war. The wreckage of one, a B24-D Liberator bound for Prestwick from Newfoundland, lies on the western flanks of the mountain not far from the summit. It’s officially a war grave, and the hillside is strewn with molten metal and cables. Coire a Bhradain is littered with the debris from the other two. It is thought that in total 28 men lost their lives in air crashes on this peak alone.
From the summit, there are magnificent views east across Coire a Bhradain and towards Goatfell and down to Brodick. To the west, the ground drops steeply through boulders and down to the wet meanderings of Glen Iorsa. The south west gives uninterupted views to the heather moorland of the Southend, and the sea to Northern Ireland.
Most people at this point will continue northwards, down eroded slopes barely held together by scraps of dwarf willow, to the broad crest of the coire headwall, and Beinn Tarsuinn beyond.
The meaning of Nuis is hazy, with some scholars claiming that it is gaelic for fawn, and others linking it to the word bainne nos, which is colostrum, or first milk. Either way, it is easy to imagine that many young deer calves are born and taste their first milk, in the south facing Coire Nuis, or hidden away in the secret upper part of Coire a Bhradain, which is only visible from the ridge above.
It’s not just red deer who live here. The mountain is home to many birds and mammals, from tiny voles that scoot from under your feet, to their nemesis, the hen harrier, whose grace hides a steely intensity with devastating effect. The Ordnance Survey map labels the east face Creag na h-Iolaire, “Crag of the Eagle”, and although none nest here now, I often see golden eagles scouting the flanks of the hill for red grouse and rabbits. The rabbits of Beinn Nuis are a mystery to me. Their warren is built right below the final climb to the summit, dug in to hard, thin earth and gravel. I find it hard to imagine that they make much of a living up here but I see their tracks in snow and occasionally spot the animals themselves. Once, the snow revealed another unexpected set of footprints- the miniature bear-paw claws of a wandering badger. It’s astonishing that rabbits and badgers are making their living at nearly 800m in winter, but Beinn Nuis is full of surprises.