What a week it was! Rock Climbing on the “Cioch“ and the sea cliffs of Elgol was really good and the weather ideal. The highlight of the week for me was doing the Cuillin Ridge with Alistair, Terry and Nell. We left the campsite at 4am, straight up to Coir a Ghrundha and Sgurr nan Eag, left the bags there with Nell and moved quickly to Gars-Bhein (the southern summit-7am) Went back on ourselves to retrieve the bags (and Nell).We carried on walking/scrambling the ridge, took the rope out twice to go through the TD GAP and King Chimney. Nell left us just before the Inn Pin in the early afternoon and headed back towards the campsite for a more relaxing rest of the day. Alistair, Terry and I followed the ridge all the way to Sgurr nan Gillean in glorious sunshine. Going up and down Gillean at the end was very exposed and quite scary for a scramble, probably because we were all very tired after walking for 16 hours! After that came at least 2 hours of agony before we made it to the pub before last order…
Fred
Fred
I came to Skye with a friend from university days (Mike McFarlane) on Thursday, only briefly meeting up with Fred and Dave Pillow on their way home on Sunday.
Fortunately, we were able to use some spare bunks at the Glen Brittle Memorial Hut where the LincolnMC and FRCC were having a meet that same week. The midges turned out to be rather bad this time already and thus, despite a lack of ventilation, the hut was a welcome safe haven. Many thanks to Pat and Andrew Reynolds for offering this option whilst they were "wardening" at the hut.In brief: Skye was fantastic: wall-to-wall sunshine and way to warm and dry throughout. On our first morning, Friday, the word was for five days of good weather. Never believing a British weather forecast we decided to go for the ridge as soon as possible, i.e. that same morning. We left the hut at around 10 a.m. heading for Garbh Beinn at the Southern end of the Cuillin Ridge. We decided to take our time and bivvy near An Stac one night. There was a temperature inversion the next morning, so that alone made it worthwhile - and we had the Inn Pinn to ourselves when we set off agian on the second day.
However, lugging all that kit around the ridge was not really that good an idea. With Mike finding his mind well fried by all that "exposed climbing" we were somewhat late reaching the last bealach. Preferring not to climb that last "pinnacly" ridge I joined up with John and Jeff from Cheshire and made it to the top of Sgurr nan Gillean by 10.30 p.m., just in time for the sunset. Walking back through a cloudless and almost balmy night we got back to the Glen Brittle Hut by 4 a.m. We could have stopped and bivvied again en route but decided to go for proper bunks and a lie-in instead. Such hopes were sadly dashed as no-one left the hut key out for us and we didn't feel like waking the whole house. So another bivvy "night" it was with midge hell all around. Anyway, it was a great adventure and I will try again doing it in a single day some other time. By the way, we avoided dehydration by getting water from Lochan Lagan just below our campsite. A long slog up the scree on the way back but certainly worthwhile. Sunday we recovered from the previous days' efforts. Monday we fashioned a midge cover for one of our bedroom windows from a midge head net, thus allowing some fresh air "sans" midges. (Surprisingly, the hut does not have midge nets installed on any of its windows, but then such wind-free times are probably rare.) Later on I joined Mike on an exploratory wander around the Point of Sleat on search of photogenic views (see his work at www.mikemcfarlane.co.uk).Tuesday started a little wet and generally looked "not very good". So I set off on my own to have a look at the headland to the South of the Cuillin Ridge. This turned out to be a rather wild bit of land where more beasts than people have wandered in recent times. A great low-level walk for rainy days. As it turned out, this day did turn to better weather later in the morning, so not taking a camera was a bad move. Anyway, what an excuse to haste back...
However, lugging all that kit around the ridge was not really that good an idea. With Mike finding his mind well fried by all that "exposed climbing" we were somewhat late reaching the last bealach. Preferring not to climb that last "pinnacly" ridge I joined up with John and Jeff from Cheshire and made it to the top of Sgurr nan Gillean by 10.30 p.m., just in time for the sunset. Walking back through a cloudless and almost balmy night we got back to the Glen Brittle Hut by 4 a.m. We could have stopped and bivvied again en route but decided to go for proper bunks and a lie-in instead. Such hopes were sadly dashed as no-one left the hut key out for us and we didn't feel like waking the whole house. So another bivvy "night" it was with midge hell all around. Anyway, it was a great adventure and I will try again doing it in a single day some other time. By the way, we avoided dehydration by getting water from Lochan Lagan just below our campsite. A long slog up the scree on the way back but certainly worthwhile. Sunday we recovered from the previous days' efforts. Monday we fashioned a midge cover for one of our bedroom windows from a midge head net, thus allowing some fresh air "sans" midges. (Surprisingly, the hut does not have midge nets installed on any of its windows, but then such wind-free times are probably rare.) Later on I joined Mike on an exploratory wander around the Point of Sleat on search of photogenic views (see his work at www.mikemcfarlane.co.uk).Tuesday started a little wet and generally looked "not very good". So I set off on my own to have a look at the headland to the South of the Cuillin Ridge. This turned out to be a rather wild bit of land where more beasts than people have wandered in recent times. A great low-level walk for rainy days. As it turned out, this day did turn to better weather later in the morning, so not taking a camera was a bad move. Anyway, what an excuse to haste back...
Jojo Neff
No comments:
Post a Comment