[Oonoch Bayk] Gaelic, meaning Small Ridge (despite being higher than Aonach Mòr).
Aonach Beag is a giant of a hill, with three steep, craggy faces of very different characters.
The North Face has ice routes of a quality to rival anything on Ben Nevis, and is fairly accessible from the Nevis Range Ski Centre. The West Face has a succession of shorter schist crags giving excellent steep mixed climbing interspersed with late-season ice-lines. The East Face is a wild, isolated place, almost alpine in scale, with several separate crags that hold great but rarely-climbed winter lines of all types.
The West Face of Aonach Beag is cut by a kilometre-long line of schist crags. The sheer scale of the mountain can make these look rather insignificant from a distance, but they give some excellent climbing which is well worth exploring.
Broken Axe Buttress lies closest to the Aonach Mòr-Aonach Beag col. The base of the buttress is about 150m south and 50m below this col. It can be reached by contouring in from that col. The climbing here is steep, turfy mixed climbing on
good schist.
To the right of this lies the Central West Face, a long area of more broken ground which forms some ice-lines in the latter half of the season.
Raw Egg Buttress is another steep turfy schist crag around 500m from the Aonach Mòr-Aonach Beag col, best approached from Glen Nevis.
To the right of it is an area of broken ground known as the Lower West Face, and to the right again lies Skyline Buttress. It is best approached from Glen Nevis.