Even so, and in spite of a good forecast, we spent much of the day in dreary mists but the mountain still had much to offer on our most recent visit.

Even the trip from Corran Ferry to the little hamlet of Resipole is worth a little time out. The drive along the narrow loch-side road has to be taken slowly, not due to any difficulties or dangers in the road itself, more to the fact that the scenery you drive through is top rate. Loch Linnhe is enchanting and early morning mists swirling above its surface partially hid the big hills rising from its southern shores, Argylewards. The smaller hills we passed through, rugged Garbh Bheinn and his nearby cohorts, to mention just one highlight, rose from the road in tiers of rock and winter muted golden grass. Yes, we drove slowly!

Through Glen Tarbet, trees came to the roadside, mist shrouded and gloomy. Beyond Strontian, Loch Sunnart opened out, but only with the promise of more mist. When we arrived at the little village of Resipole the mists had become a gossamer of drizzle.

From the caravan park a woodland walk led us through birch and oaks and we had such trees for company for well over a mile. Any time from spring, right through to autumn, must be a lovely time for walking here but today the atmosphere was dank, gloomy and grey. Soon the gently rising path (a rough track for its first half kilometre or so), had perspiration dripping from our brows.

Very tight in places, often contouring the steep sides of the ravine through which burbled the Allt Mhic Chiarain, the much used path was a nightmare of calf high goo; the first couple of kilometres have to be taken rather stoically!

But with the open hillside came a better path. Our way now lay due east, always in the company of the allt, almost all the way to Resipol's as yet unseen summit. Unseen, not because of mist, (we'd left the drizzle beside the sea, behind us), but hidden by a rising, rolling folding of the wild ground before us.

We walked in the southern marches of ancient Sunnart, a wild and lonely quarter of the Western Highlands. Our path led us over or around low grassy hillocks which, for a good while, belied any hint of Beinn Resipol, whose foothills these were.

There came a point where the allt was compelled to squeeze itself through a deep little gorge; in places our path tiptoed along the very lip of the chasm. In one or two places the path, eroded by the constant chivvying of the weather, (an erosion compounded by the continuous passage of unfriendly boots), had actually slipped away into the noisy waters below; we trod a precarious path.

Often we stopped for backward glances, hoping to be treated to those stunning Western seaboard vistas; they never quite materialised. For sure we had tantalising views out to Egg and Rhum, (whose misty Cuillin looked immense and close from here), but today Beinn Resipol was merely teasing us! The best 'views' were those near about us; the winter yellow hillocks enlivened by the deeper browns of heather clumps and the bright greens of sometimes quite prolific growths of soft rush. We saw no deer; even the birds were staying put today.

After twists and turns and numerous minor ups and down, we caught our first glimpse of Beinn Resipol's rock studded summit pyramid.

Intermittently popping in and out of her shroud of fog, she seemed only the ghost of a hill. And up ahead, still besides the allt and near the foot of this final cone, we spied another walker.

His red hill coat gave him away. No more than half a mile ahead he'd stopped, walked to his left and then to his right; back down a few paces then on again and upwards. He seemed unsure of his route.

Arriving at the spot, some seven or eight minutes later, we found the reason for his dallying. Or, rather, lost it! For here the path seemed to vanish. From here on up the slopes became progressively rockier; although there were intermittent signs on the ground of the hoards who had been here before, there was no clear path.

But none was needed. Amid swirling mists and now on increasingly iced glazed rock, we simply wove an ever upward course of our own.

And so we arrived at the summit cairn, a lonely pile of stones today, perched atop a rough rocky plinth. The sky above us was holed with hopeful patches of blue, but all around us there was gloom. We tell ourselves at times like these that 'the scene is atmospheric'. Perhaps that's true, but the atmosphere today couldn't quite dispel more than a tinge of disappointment!

"Supposed to be a great viewpoint!" came a resigned sounding voice from within the swirling fog. "Aye!" I replied to the walker in red who just then seemed to emerge from the mist like a spectre, "and I don't think we'll get a view today, either".

Our new friend was a big chap easily in his seventies, yet robust looking and fit. His accent was London, Tottenham, he said he came from, though that was many years ago. A retired submariner, he'd come to live in southwest Scotland with his wife; over the years he'd climbed all the Munros, he told us proudly, now he was working away at his Corbetts. His wife had given him a few days of freedom to roam about at will; he was having the time of his life.

He asked if we'd mind his company, at least until we'd descended below the mist, we were only too happy, though before very long we were growing hoarse ourselves with shouting for his benefit - he was, he said, going deaf!

We dropped back down carefully through the icy rocks and probably by an entirely different route than the one we'd taken upwards. Eventually we were back with the makings of a path. We stopped for a retrospective look at Resipol. Typically the hill was now freer of cloud than it had been all day long! The views below us, Loch Sunnart-wards, were also opening up. Great patches of blue sky where beginning to paint the heavens out south and west; the land and sea below became a watery patchwork of sun glistening highlights and cloud dappled shadows.

Down below the gorge we thought it time to stop for lunch. The sun was at last warming us and the land; we found a spot on a small grassy tump high above the allt and pic-nicked half an hour or so away. Our Tottenham Hotspur fan left us here, happy to make his own way down to the waiting trees and the gooey path back to Resipole. We were just as happy to delay that little nicety for at least another hour or so.

MAP: O.S. Sheet 40
START/ FINISH: Resipole Camp site Grid ref: 725639
DISTANCE: 11 kil 7 miles
ASCENT: 845 metres