Tech Tip #2 - Saddles

Now we all know what a contour line is (if you don’t, then refer to Tech Tips #1 Contour Lines), let's start looking at some common geographical features.

Why is this useful to you? Because knowing the names of common features allows you to easily describe a route/location, either to your friends or to Mountain Rescue when you've done something silly.

First up:

The saddle.

Also known by the French word 'col', the Scottish 'bealach' or the Welsh 'bwlch' (prizes to whoever can pronounce that one), In English we call this a saddle, because it looks like a horse’s saddle. From the folks that brought you Shakespeare...

A saddle is just a low point; either the dip between two peaks (Ben More on the left and Stob Binnein on the right in this photo) or in the middle of a ridge.

A saddle can, for fairly obvious reasons, be the easiest route to the far side of some mountains, but do keep an eye on the weather. Saddles can act like a giant funnel and you can encounter wind-speeds far greater than on the surrounding slopes.

Four sets of contour lines will all appear to bulge inwards (two from above and two from below) towards a small blank patch which is the saddle itself.

In this case we have the high points of Ben More, at the top (north) of the map, and Stob Binnein, at the bottom (south), with the ground dropping to Bealach-eadar-dha Bheinn (try shouting that down a radio on a windy day!) between the two. In turn this is a high point between the low ground to the lest (west) and right (east) where the blue lines of the streams can be seen flowing down towards the two valleys.

So yeah, that's a saddle.