The Ardnamurchan peninsula on the west coast is one of the wildest and most beautiful parts of Scotland. If you want to lose yourself and indulge in some of the most rugged and testing walking, this is the place.

The area is Mother Nature in the raw, as a study of the map will reveal, with tightly-packed contours denoting steep slopes on hill after hill, split by lochs and inlets. It adds up to a walker's paradise, though not for the faint-hearted or inexperienced.

Having said that, I spent a superb autumn week in a self-catering cottage at Strontian some years ago when my children were young, and we had a wonderful time as a family pottering along woodland tracks and beside burns. I stole just one day to myself to climb the Corbett of Beinn Resipol, and listened to red deer stags roaring in the rut.

One of my favourite hills is here, and is the subject of this walk; it is one that rock climbers rave about, since it contains some classic routes, with names such as Razor Slash and Butterknife. The Great Ridge provides a relatively easy climb to the summit for those with the expertise - an outing that I have enjoyed several times in the company of climbing friends.

The easiest way to get across to the peninsula, avoiding a long drive around Loch Eil, is to take the Corran Ferry, off the road between Ballahulish and Fort William - but check the times so that you do not miss the last one back. Once across Loch Linnhe, it is only a short drive to the start of the route up Coire an lubhair, at an old bridge just after Inversanda Bay.

It has to be said that the walk up into the base of the corrie is a bit of a squelch, but persevere, taking to the boiler-plate slabs of rock that protrude from the ground whenever possible - even in the bed of the burn, if it proves dry enough.

It is a couple of miles to the corrie base, with the burn issuing down from tiny Lochlan Coire an lubhair, high above. Climb up to this lochan, then turn left to pick your way up the summit of Garbh Bheinn, another Corbett (a hill ov 2500ft-3000ft) like Beinn Resipol. The Ardnamurchan peninsula abounds in them.

Take a long breather on the top and enjoy some lunch before heading south-east, down over the long ridge of Sron a'Garbh Choire Bhig to the start point.

From Scotland on Sunday, March 30 2003