Ben Garrisdale

Standing as the high point of Jura’s rugged northern end, this Marilyn offers a wild, pathless character away from the famous Paps. The terrain is a challenging mix of bog and heather, but the reward is a staggering, intimate view over the Gulf of Corryvreckan toward the island of Scarba.

• •The name is likely a Gaelic-Norse hybrid; 'Beinn' is Gaelic for hill, while 'Garrisdale' stems from the Old Norse 'gerðis-dalr', meaning the 'valley of the enclosure' or 'fenced valley.'
• •From the summit, you gain a unique aerial perspective of the Gulf of Corryvreckan to the north, where you can often see the 'Great Race' tide rip and whirlpool churning against the coast of Scarba.
• •The hill sits in the remote northern territory of Jura, not far from the farmhouse of Barnhill where George Orwell lived while writing 'Nineteen Eighty-Four' between 1946 and 1949.
• •Unlike the steep quartzite scree that defines the Paps of Jura to the south, Ben Garrisdale is a land of relentless moorland and complex bogs that requires a long, arduous approach from the road end at Lealt.
• •On an island where red deer outnumber human residents by roughly twenty to one, you are significantly more likely to receive a stern look from a stag than to encounter another walker on these northern slopes.