The Lochan Traverse of Coire Lagan

 "The Lochan Traverse" (Mod*) takes a diagonal line across the cliff, starting beneath the obvious white slab.

The cloud was down and the drizzle was starting, the hints of warmth brought by last week were absent, and things felt all very different to how they usually do when I'm starting a climbing day in the Cuillin.

But I am here to get to know Skye more intimately, surely that should involve experiencing the Cuillin the way they are so much of the time?

The North ridge of Sgurr Sgumain

 

 The Cioch in the mist

With all thoughts of a challenging solo put firmly to one side, for the first time ever I entered a Cuillin corrie with an open mind, not fixed and concentrated on a particular objective as I always have been in the past. It was fairly clear the weather was entirely in command this morning.

As the cloud descended even lower to 500m, my tracks turned towards "The Lochan Traverse" (Mod*) - a diagonal split between two layers of gabbro that crosses the West Buttress of Sgurr Sgumain. But even this low down in the corrie, I wasn't going to escape the fog for very long.

 The start of the Lochan Traverse

Looking back down the fold

A wet and slippery start and a few awkward moves, but a good choice for a foggy day that was starting to feel really quite cold. I like the way that so many routes in the Cuillin follow the endless splits and faults and breaks and sudden changes in geology that define the mountain range…natural passageways through threatening and serious places.

 

 Inside the split in the fog

A team on Arrow Route

I am struggling to think of anywhere I've been more interesting in the fog than Skye's mountains, be it the demented cliffs of Trotternish or the noble buttresses of the Cuillin. As if they aren't complicated enough, the fog reveals them to be even more convoluted than you thought. Is there anywhere with more character per square mile?

James

The North ridge of Sgurr na h-Uamha

The striking tilted "shark's fin" of the North Ridge of Sgurr na h-Uamha (Moderate*)

  

Things change so rapidly here. Yesterday I was bracing against a hailstorm watching fresh snow fall on the Cuillin, this morning I was enjoying dry rock and sunshine.

I watched in awe last night as the skies cleared and the entire island transformed into a totally different place to how it has been the past week. I snoozed during the 5 hours of twilight overnight, and woke at 4am to a thin layer of mist outside and the sky brightening once more.

The Northern Cuillin at 5am

Sgurr nan Gillean.

Sgurr na h-Uamha is one of the Cuillin's "odd ones out". It is overshadowed by its bigger neighbour Sgurr nan Gillean, and one of the lesser known of the Cuillin's peaks. But in the world famous view from Elgol Bay, is there any other peak that has such a striking outline as Sgurr na h-Uamha?

 Sgurr na h-Uamha is the steep, lower triangular peak in the middle distance on the left.

 Snow still lingering in Coire a'Bhasteir

Early fog forming on the Cuillin outliers

My purpose this morning was to climb and visit an area of the Cuillin that was totally new to me. To stand on a new summit and see unfamiliar views. As soon as I broke onto Sgurr nan Gillean's SE Ridge and saw Sgurr na h-Uamha, I knew my choice was a good one. What a peak! Like a shark's fin at an improbably tilted angle.

Winter remains on the peaks of the Southern Cuillin

 

The Third Pinnacle on Gillean's Pinnacle Ridge

The North Ridge is the classic route to the summit, but it is also almost the only means of descent as well. So like some other superb mountains like Clach Glas, this is a peak where the easiest means of descent requires downclimbing Moderate graded rock.

Two-thirds of the way up the ridge, I found myself unsure of the way ahead. Continue along the narrow ledge, or break up left? I probed around for 15 minutes or so, both options looking likely but neither convincing. I didn't want to climb into a cul-de-sac that I wouldn't be able to climb down again.

Sgurr Dearg and the Inaccessible Pinnacle

Am Basteir

But like so many of the Cuillin's routes, once you've found the right way, you almost feel silly for not having realised on first sight. And sections of improbable-looking rock are easy where on different rock types they would be far more testing.

The crux wall, on ascent and descent.

The easier lower half of the route

There is something very special about summits that cannot be retreated from or descended easily. Especially when they are higher in quality than some of their bigger and more famous neighbours…as is the case with a few of the smaller Cuillin tops.

I packed away outer layers and gloves and let the sun touch my skin with relish. A perfect morning to discover yet another extraordinary corner of this island.

James

The moodier side of Skye

A brief moment of brightness on the cliffs of Cuilthir, Creag a'Lain.

 
Half way through my time here on Skye now, and the island continues to amaze me. My entire perception of Skye has expanded, changed and developed with every morning that I have woken to look out on the island.

In the past my trips to Skye would be impromptu and unplanned, last minute change of plans to get to the Cuillin whilst the sun shone and the rock was dry. But spring has barely started yet here, let alone the summer, and in the last two weeks I've seen the island bear the brunt of some fairly savage weather.

White-tailed sea eagle, Camustianavaig.

A massive storm cloud over the Isle of South Rona

 

Juvenile golden eagle, Dunvegan Head.

Snow settling at sea level was not something I had in mind when I was making my plans to spend May on Skye. A poor time to be a climber on the island, but do I really care? Why mooch and dwell on poor conditions in the Cuillin when I can go and explore remote and extraordinary stretches of the coast, with snow blowing in the wind and crashing seas.

The Old Man of Storr

Golden eagle flying over the sea at Biod an Athair

Moody view from Ben Tianavaig

Just before the snow started falling near Flasvein, Trotternish

So much time spent atop sea-cliffs and on beaches that the smell of the sea seems to be starting to wash into me like the tides that are so central to daily life on the island. Even on several blustery days on the hills of the Trotternish Ridge, where the whiff of the sea-breeze sometimes reaches the summits and occasional stalks of kelp and broken seashells litter the slopes where the gulls have dropped them. The mountains and the coast merge seamlessly on Skye.

Biod an Athair, the tallest sea-cliffs on Skye - reaching a full height of 1026ft.

A raven's call.

Rubha nam Braithrean, near Staffin. Two minutes later the rain was so hard that visibility was down to less than 50 feet.

In the same way it was in Glencoe, every moment of sunshine here is something to savour and put to best use, and bad weather is rarely far from the shore. For brief hours here and there the Uists, Harris and Lewis appear surprisingly close across the sea…but then go, not to be seen again for days.

So much on an island is routine, the repetition of the tides and waves and winds. But so many moments of sudden drama too…you never know when the next eagle will appear and fly so close you can see the colour of its eyes, or when the next squall will hit.

James

Sunkissed climbing on Blabheinn

A perfect morning to go climbing on Blabheinn

Walking in to climb a route without carrying ice axes or crampons… it felt un-natural after a 6 month long winter. Climbing with just hands and feet, how does that work again? But where better to quickly remind yourself than on the immaculate rock of the Cuillin?

A and B Buttresses are towards the left of centre-frame.

The Storr in the early morning sunshine.

 

 

 The Clach Glas - Blabheinn Traverse skyline - a superb route, the best Diff in Britain?

I headed to the Southern Buttresses of Blabheinn's SE Ridge yesterday morning to kickstart my summer climbing season and remind myself that I do indeed know how to move on rock. Only a couple of days ago it was looking like low pressure had set in solidly in the North-West - I really had no expectations to be climbing any time soon. How rapidly things can change out here…sunshine warm enough to warrant only a t-shirt, and dry rock in plentiful supply on South facing corries.

Plenty of dry rock on South and East facing lower buttresses.

I have been extremely lucky over the last few years with many many sightings of golden eagles, some of them remarkably close (the closest was at a distance of perhaps only 12 feet away, last year above Glen Etive). But yesterday morning might have been my most memorable…I stood transfixed as a pair of eagles flew straight over the route I was about to climb, only a few yards above my head, turning and twisting in the air above me.

One of a pair of golden eagles that flew only a few yards above my head

Sgurr nan Gillean's Pinnacle Ridge.

You can't fail to have a memorable day with something like that to go on, and I started up the first Moderate slabs of A Buttress with a spring in my step. Climbing on rock didn't feel remotely awkward as I feared it might after a long winter of snow and ice climbs, and I found myself seeking out the most difficult line throughout the route just for the pleasure of it.

The crux of A Buttress (Diff*) takes the central crack line.

 B Buttress (Mod*)

 The Cuillin Ridge from near to the summit

No second thoughts were needed to decide to descend after A Buttress and climb its longer neighbour as well, and I was rewarded with another sighting of one of the eagles, perched close by on a boulder with a view over the whole Cuillin Ridge.

James

Spring's arrival on Skye?

The Coral Beaches, Dunvegen.

 

Before I go somewhere for the first time, I always end up forming a really strong mental image of how I think it'll be. It really aggravates me…as if reality doesn't live up to expectations, then disappointment can sometimes follow when it shouldn't necessarily have to.

So when you get somewhere with a name as tantalising as "the Coral Beaches", it's not hard for your imagination to run away with itself. Sometimes I think it is in fact best to wait for exactly the right moment to visit somewhere you've thought a lot about, and then occasionally reality can put your mental image of the place to shame.

This happened yesterday morning. After a few days of some pretty awful weather, I found unbroken sunshine and a warm breeze on Skye's West coast. The Coral Beaches were never somewhere I was going to visit for the first time on an overcast day, and in yesterday's sunshine they were absolutely gorgeous.

One of the most magical things about the Hebrides is the way that with even a subtle change of weather or lighting, the beaches can transform from bleak and intimidating into the sort that would look at home in the tropics. I've learnt to savour every moment of days like this on the island… they can be few and far between.

A golden eagle at Indrigil Point.

 

MacLeod's Maidens.

 

The majestic and "in your face" coastline of Indrigil Point could have hardly been more different to the Coral Beaches, the vertical and jagged replacing the horizontal and calm. The golden eagle hunting over the cliffs instead of the seals swimming in the clear blue waters.

A waterfall plunging 260ft into the sea at Indrigil.

 

That was yesterday. Today the tearing wind and howling noise up on the Trotternish Ridge, effort, summits and billowing clouds. A different kind of calm, but calm none the less.

James

First few days in Trotternish

  

The extraordinary Trotternish coast.

What was the most unusual thing about my life in Glencoe? Perhaps the fact that every day for years my immediate surroundings were some of the most magnificent anywhere.

Needless to say one result of this is that it probably takes far more for new landscapes to astonish me on first impressions than it once did….but 5 days exploring Trotternish has made my jaw drop.

Galta Beag sea stack.

 Meall Tuath, Rubha Hunish

 The Old Man of Storr - 165ft feet high...

Snow and rime ice near the summit of The Storr

At dawn on Saturday I went for a run up Sron Vourlinn, one of the tops of the mighty Quirang. I've run in some amazing places but this is definitely the most unusual. Up through a prehistoric landscape, slimy cliffs of chaos and madness that could be straight from "The Lost World"…and but once on the tops, all of a sudden it felt like I was running along a sea-cliff.

Getting wet feet...in the subterranean Iron Age structure at Kilvaxter

The Quirang, an extraordinary place to go for a hill-run.

 The coast North of Flodigarry.

"The Cathedral" and The Old Man

This is what has grabbed me immediately about Trotternish, the fact that such bizarre and unique mountains exist within a tiny distance of some of Britain's most crazy and impressive coastal landforms. It is quite a thing, to be stood looking down on huge sea-stacks on one side, but mountain cliffs that look like they must surely still contain live dinosaurs on the other.

Lots of snow still on the Cuillin

 

 The landscape of The Storr

The cliffs of Meall Deas.

It feels odd in a way to think just how focused on The Cuillin I've nearly always been before on my visits here. I've only been here 6 days, but to me Skye already feels twice the island it did before.

James