Trip to the Cuillins of Skye

Pronunciation/Translation: Sgurr Dearg - skoor jerrack (red peak), Sgurr Mhic Choinnich - skoor veek chunyeek (MacKenzie's Peak, named after John MacKenzie the first Skye guide)

One of the highlights of 2010 for me, has to be the trip made to the Isle of Skye back in June for an adventurous jaunt among the Cuillins.

Starting the long drive north around lunchtime on Monday 31st May, car packed full with everything needed for the next five days. I was looking forward to trying out a new mid-sized tent, too weighty for backpacking, but just right for a few days on site at Glen Brittle.

The weather had been fine the week before, and was still holding up as we finally crossed the Skye bridge on this warm sunny evening. Alfie by now had decided that he didn't really like being in the car this long and was beginning to whine at every crest and turn on the narrow roads.

We arrived at the Glen Brittle campsite, situated near the foot of the southwestern slopes of the Cuillins. It was quite busy, but we managed to find a nice spot to pitch beside the coastal fence, not too far from the shower block. Tent up, dinner cooking and a drink in hand...        ...bliss!

Tuesday morning arrived, did I hear a spot of rain last night? Well the view, or lack of it as I unzip the tent flap confirms my fear. Who stole the Cuillins? They were there looking down on us last night, but today they are swamped in thick cloud from top to bottom.
According to todays forecast there would be drier parts in the north of Skye, so we opt for a drive up to Portree and Dunvegan.

Parking in Portree is not easy, there are a number of pay and display zones that have the usual time restrictions etc. Most are full anyway, so we try the parking area just outside of the main town centre. There is an area not far along that appears to have spaces. I'm then informed by a determined looking woman that my space is for buses and coaches only. As I oblige her and resolve to continue my search for a legitimate portion of tarmac, a volkswagen passat seizes my "bus" space. Eventually I find a spot which has a few empty spaces either side, so surely no complaints?

A short walk takes us to the busy hub of Portree town centre, where we drop into the Tourist Information building to buy an OS map and a few prints of the majestic Cuillins. Then it's the obligatory walk down to the harbour and a quick nose around the many little shops that offer tartan, shortbread, malt whisky and those little lighthouses made out of scrap metal.

In one outlet Shona bought a cool Landrover coffee mug. While I was waiting outside with Alfie I decided that one of those lighthouses might look good upon the pebbles in my bathroom, so I go in to get one when Shona returns. Some time later I come out with nothing. It seems I have the knack of becoming invisible when standing waiting to pay at shop counters, both to the customers behind me and the persons serving. In this shop it would seem that dusting the merchandise was way more important than selling it.

Feeling hungry we seek out and find a handy little fish and chip establishment that has nice wooden benches for us to tether Alfie while we fill our bellies. We then head back to continue our tour of Skye. On reaching the car, the driver of the coach next to us informs me that I'm parked in a bus space...    ...Oh really?

Next stop on the tour is the Old Man of Storr. We park up, (not a coach in sight) and start up the path through wooded hillside towards the legendary landmark. The scenery here is beautiful. Dramatic, grey pinnacles of rock forcing their way up through lush green grass. I really want to go back and do some climbing on those jagged faces, although according to Dave MacLeod, who climbed the Old Man in 2009, there is little in the way of reliable protection placements and holds may be plentiful, but likely to break off in your hand!

On to Dunvegan, which was mostly shut, apart from two hotel bars. We plumped for one that had an outside seating area for Alfie, but with the wind getting up, Shona ventured inside to see if it was dog-friendly. She was gone quite a while, so I decided to stick my head in to see what was what. Other than a barmaid there was only one couple in the bar, and it seemed they were determined to make Shona hear all their tales of collies and campervans. It was now my turn to have my ears filled with facts of the aforementioned subjects. After the couple's border collie had performed every trick in it's lengthy repetoire, including jumping upon the pool table and rolling over to collect the cue ball, we made our excuses and got on our way back to the south and those Cuillins.

Dinner tonight would be more fish, oops. We picked up some smoked mackrel earlier in the day, that and the usual baked beans and beer went down a treat. Maybe Shona would disagree?
Off we creep to sleeping bags in the hope that the morning would be cloud free.

Wednesday gave us much the same weather conditions as the previous day. It could deal us this hand daily, so we decided to head up into the mountains anyway. In hindsight I was glad that the Cuillins were shrouded in cloud. It meant that we got to see two very different sides of these awesome mountains.

An easily followed path leads up from the campsite shower block. It winds it's way along for some way and in places hugs the little streams that drain the lochans higher up on the hills. Although it was overcast, the rain had held off so far and we were all still nice and dry. This was about to change as we began heading up into the mist towards the Coire Lagan. The terrain gets much steeper here and in places where there is alot of boulders, you can lose track of the path, especially if there is a lot of low cloud.

We continued up the left side of the gully to the waterfalls cascading from the sublime lochan which plugs the corrie between Sgurr Dearg and Sgurr Alasdair. There were a few other climbers who had chosen the rocks by the lochan as a place to stop for lunch, so we joined them. Having lunch felt quite bizzarre in this setting. It was dark due to the thick cloud shrouding us, and really did feel like it was night. Three guys resting near us asked where we were heading. Well, our plan was just to attempt to get up to the ridge and see how conditions were. These guys were a bit undecided, they were thinking about turning around and heading lower down.

With fuel on board we set off towards the back of the corrie. A large group were just in front and seemed to be searching for the Great Stone Chute which falls down between Sgurr Alasdair and Sgurr Thearlaich. They really didn't seem to be very sure where they were heading and we decided to head north towards a scree slope that would take us up to the ridge between Sgurr Dearg and the Coireachan Ruadha Crags. The ascent here is tough underfoot with piles of rock and scree moving beneath your feet. It's the same on the Great Stone Chute, where we could hear warning shouts and the smashing of rocks being sent down by the large group. Soon we could hear more manic shouting closer to us and realised that the three guys we had spoken to at the lochan were struggling to follow us up the scree.

In these conditions I find this unnecessary shouting quite annoying. If someone truly has fallen it may be drowned out by others vocalising their disgruntlement about the climb.
Fortunately the three were fine, just a bit shaken by the steep scree they'd taken on. They joined Shona, Alfie and I on the ridge then plodded off in search of the Inaccessible Pinnacle.

Visibility up here was still extremely poor. The mist was soaking us and wind was whipping spray across the ridge, poor Alfie wasn't happy. We headed in the other direction along the ridge towards the Coireachan Ruadha Crags for a bit, but soon decided that we would be wiser to descend back to the lochan. On the way up to the ridge, Shona had expressed some concern about how we would manage to get back down. We ended up having the best time ever descending the same scree slope we had climbed up. Safe in the knowledge that there were no drop-offs to negotiate, we virtually surfed the entire way down to the corrie floor. Back on solid ground, we skipped round the lochan and joined up with the path that took us winding back down to a cloud-free altitude.

On returning to the campsite, we noted that the high winds we had encountered on the ridge were still blowing steadily at sea level. Shona rustled up a nice evening meal, and as we sat upon fold-away chairs gazing up at where the Cuillins should be...     ...yes! It was clearing, ever so slowly, but they definately appeared to be coming back into view.

A few hours later and the ridge was standing proud and cloud-free. We went to bed, fingers and toes crossed that tomorrow would be clear also.

An early start on Thursday, I held my breath as I unzipped the tent, hooray! we had good conditions. No time to hang about, we got our gear organised and started up along the route we had taken the previous day. It was like climbing somewhere completely different. Without any cloud to restrict our view, we could see for miles with everything that we had missed before now visible.

On reaching the lochan at the corrie we were both speechless as we glanced up at the formidable scree slopes guarding the ridge. We couldn't believe how high and steep they truly were. Today we decided to skirt the edges of the scree and climb our way to the ridge up the rocks directly under the Inaccessible Pinnacle. This shaved quite a bit of time off our ascent from yesterday, giving us more time to scramble along the ridge towards Sgurr MhicChoinnich and Sgurr Thearlaich. The views up here today were the finest I've encountered while climbing. We moved onwards to Sgurr Alastair but alas the terrain became way too difficult to negotiate with Alfie having to be hoisted from ledge to ledge.

After having spent several hours up on the ridge, we decided to go back the way we had come and do another scree-surf down into the corrie. Again, it wasn't long before we had made it down to the lochan. We stopped here for a rest and chatted to some climbers who had been watching our progress through binoculars. They were amazed, when they noticed we had a spaniel with us on the ridge.

Once more we took to the path for the now familiar, but long walk back down to Glen Brittle, or as the lads yesterday had named it...      ...Glen Brutal!

Back at the tent it was now mid afternoon, and time to dismantle everything and pack up.
We made plans to get going and head for an overnight stop in Fort William. Maybe if we still had enough energy we would climb Ben Nevis tomorrow.

We made it to Fort William in the nick of time. At the Glen Nevis campsite there were only a handful of pitches remaining, due to the World Mountain Bike Championships taking place over the weekend. A quick pitch of the tent and we were off into town to grab some food. Our regular choice of venue in Fort William is the Grog and Gruel Pub, mainly because they are dog friendly, but also the atmosphere is lively and casual.


Friday morning arrived and the weather was still favourable. Our limbs were feeling okay, so a trip up to the summit of Ben Nevis was on the cards. We set ourselves a target and managed to make the ascent in under two and a half hours, which wasn't bad considering the route had been very busy. Up on the summit plateau there was still quite a bit of snow covering even in june! We lifted Alfie up onto the trig point, and for a brief time he became the highest dog in the UK!

After a quick lunch on the summit, we started back down. Again we were making a good steady pace as we planned to head back to Glasgow that day. In no time we were back at the visitor centre. Then it was a pleasant afternoons car journey via Glen Coe, Rannoch Moor and Loch Lomondside then on to the urban sprawl of Glasgow.