The route into the Arran hills started at Glenrosa Campsite. It was a deceptively easy start, the boot-beaten path gradually ascending along the winding Glenrosa Water. I’d visited Holy Island the day before, and was setting out to hike the Glen Rosa circuit, hoping to find a view of Holy Island from the 2000-foot horseshoe ridge between Cir Mhòr and A’ Chir.
After three miles, I came to a fork in the path. A right turn led to 'The Saddle', the way to climb Goatfell or carry on through to Glen Sannox. The 2,866-foot summit of Goatfell was hidden in clouds—there’d be no views there—so I took the left fork. It made a steady, steep climb, rising 1400 feet over one mile, that led through the heart of Fionn Coire to the high ridge between the peaks of Cir Mhòr and A’ Chir.
I was then faced with a difficult choice. A right turn led to Cir Mhòr (2600 ft), via the Rosa Pinnacle, and then on to Caisteal Abhail and Ceum na Caillich, the Witch’s Step. In addition to the Witch’s Step, and nearby Broomstick Ridge, there are dozens of Arran place names guaranteed to make a climber drool: Pagoda Ridge, Portcullis Buttress, Rosa Slabs, the Bastion, the Rosetta Stone, and the Devil’s Punchbowl. If you fail to climb any of those enticing temptations, you can always settle for Consolation Tor.
I needed to be back at the road in three hours to meet my wife, so I turned left to follow an exhilaratingly airy ridge-top path to the south. Five minutes later, at an elevation of 2000 feet, the path split, and another decision had to be made. The left fork made a challenging, 300-foot knife-edge climb to the summit of A’ Chir. I was beat in the heat—it was a sweltering, 80-degree July day (27 deg C)—and I’d already climbed 1800 feet in over six miles. It was an easy decision for someone hiking on their own. I took the right fork that led around the west shoulder of A’ Chir.
In a matter of minutes, 300 feet of hard-earned altitude was lost, as the trail dropped down dusty, sunbaked slabs of granite, before climbing steeply to Bealach an Fhir-bhogha, Bowman’s Pass. Deer were once driven through this narrow pass, where archers lying in wait would pick them off as they stampeded through.
The view was spectacular; the massive bowl of Coire Daingean lay at my feet, dropping 1600 feet to the headwaters of Glenrosa Water. The clouds had thinned over the past hour, and the summit of Goatfell looked clear and inviting. I was beginning to regret my decision not to climb it, when something else impressive caught my eye—the very thing I’d come here to see—Holy Island rising from the blue-green waters of the Firth.
According to the map, there is a route from Bowman’s Pass down to Glen Rosa. But nary a path was to be seen, just dusty slopes, far too steep to safely descend. But 200 feet farther, just beyond the pass where archers once laid in wait, I came across a trail that dropped to the summit of Beinn a’ Chliabhain, Creel Mountain (2140 ft).
I did not want to leave the airy heights, but the time had come to start down. The heavenly ridge path to Beinn a’ Chliabhain led to another high ridge above Coire a’ Bhradain, Salmon Corry. Five hundred feet below, like veins leading to a heart, a half-dozen streams could be seen trickling down the corry; the headwaters of the salmon-filled river of Garbh Allt.
It was a joy to be walking downhill (my favourite direction). And so, happy as a midge at a nude beach, I descended to Cnoc Breac, Trout Hill. You may have noticed by now that there are a lot of fishy names on Arran. I’m surprised there’s no Pike’s Peak, but there is a hill called An Tunna; a name that commemorates an event back in the days of Cuchulain, when a lost bluefin, thinking it was a salmon, swam up Glenrosa Water trying to spawn. (Or so I read in Wikipedia.)
From Cnoc Breac, the terrain gradually transitioned from rock to heather and grass, as it descended to the cascading waters of Garbh Allt. At 6 pm the Glen Rosa campsite came into view, where my wife had dropped me six hours earlier. She wasn’t there - good help is hard to find. Fifteen minutes later, she showed up with a cold can of beer. (Oh me, of little faith.)
Arand na n-aighedh n-imdha, tadall fairge re a formna,
ailén a m-biadhta buidhni, druimne a n-dergthar gái gorma.
Arran blessed with stags, encircled by the sea,
Island that fed hosts, where the black spears turn crimson.
From ‘Acallamh na Senórach’, Tales of the Elders of Ireland, 12th century, author unknown
Translation from ‘A New Translation by Ann Dooley and Harry Roe’, Oxford University Press
