Qualla: Beinn Eighe

Beinn Eighe: Introduction

Sat, 30 May 2026 00:00:00 GMT

Photo credit Hilmar Ilgenfritz, CC BY-SA 2.0. In the early hours of 14 March 1951, an Avro Lancaster of 120 Squadron came back from a maritime patrol over Rockall and never reached its bed at RAF Kinloss. The aircraft had departed RAF Kinloss on the evening of 13 March; it struck the summit ridge of Beinn Eighe about five metres below the crest in the early hours of the following morning, in a gully now called Fuselage Gulley above the dark water of Loch Coire Mhic Fhearchair. Eight men died: a pilot, a co-pilot, a navigator, four air signals operators, a flight engineer. Wreckage still litters the corrie. So does the older story of this mountain, which became Great Britain's first national nature reserve a few months later that same year.

Read more: Beinn Eighe on Qualla

Image: Hilmar Ilgenfritz | CC BY-SA 2.0

Beinn Eighe: The Mountain of White Stone

Sat, 30 May 2026 00:00:00 GMT

Photo credit Ikiwaner, CC BY-SA 3.0. Beinn Eighe rises in the Torridon hills of Wester Ross, its long ridge studded with Cambrian quartzite scree that flashes silver in sun and looks, on hazy days, exactly like snow. Two of its summits are Munros: Ruadh-stac Mor, the Big Red Stack, at 1010 metres, and Spidean Coire ...

Read more: Beinn Eighe on Qualla

Image: Ikiwaner | CC BY-SA 3.0

Beinn Eighe: Coire Mhic Fhearchair

Sat, 30 May 2026 00:00:00 GMT

Photo credit Ikiwaner, CC BY-SA 3.0. Round the back of the mountain, hidden from every road, the Triple Buttress Corrie waits like a secret. Three vast cliffs of Cambrian sandstone and quartzite drop into a glacial lake. Climbers have been finding routes up the buttresses since the late Victorian era, but the cartog...

Read more: Beinn Eighe on Qualla

Image: Ikiwaner | CC BY-SA 3.0

Beinn Eighe: Plants That Live Nowhere Else

Sat, 30 May 2026 00:00:00 GMT

Photo credit Mick Knapton at English Wikipedia, CC BY-SA 3.0. The summit plateau is the only place in Britain where the northern prongwort liverwort, Herbertus borealis, has been found growing. The moss Daltonia splachnoides reaches its northernmost known global station here. The Scots pines on the lower slopes are genetically closer to pin...

Read more: Beinn Eighe on Qualla

Image: Mick Knapton at English Wikipedia | CC BY-SA 3.0

Beinn Eighe: First in the Realm

Sat, 30 May 2026 00:00:00 GMT

Photo credit Iain Thompson, CC BY-SA 2.0. In 1951, Dr John Berry, then Director of Nature Conservancy in Scotland, designated Beinn Eighe Britain's first national nature reserve. It covers 4,758 hectares of moor, bog and ancient Caledonian pinewood. NatureScot runs a visitor centre at Aultroy outside Kinlochewe, and two ...

Read more: Beinn Eighe on Qualla

Image: Iain Thompson | CC BY-SA 2.0

Beinn Eighe: What Survives Up There

Sat, 30 May 2026 00:00:00 GMT

Photo credit Mike Bean from Glasgow, CC BY 2.0. In 2014 the reserve was administratively joined with the Loch Maree Islands NNR, more than sixty islands holding the most important breeding population of black-throated divers in Britain. The whole area sits within the UNESCO Wester Ross Biosphere. Up on Fuselage Gulley, weather...

Read more: Beinn Eighe on Qualla

Image: Mike Bean from Glasgow | CC BY 2.0