Druim Hain late on a summer’s night.
The Cuillin are introduced to me individually across the table of
Coruisg. The shadows are deep in the corries and the noise of water falling
reaches me from a hundred burns. I turn
back for Sligachan in some confusion. How I am supposed to do this?
From the
connecting ridge the path ran out across the face and round a corner. A foot
wide with broken crags above and a long, invisible drop below. I steeled myself
and walked out along it. At some point
around 100 metres out the path disappeared at a step where the scratch marks
showed its upward progress out to a corner perched above that drop. Crouched in the gully below the corner I
could sense it still... maybe 50 metres to the screes somewhere below. Eyes
closed I could see the arc of my fall, like a tear drop down the face with
maybe a single glance or a scrape off the rough gabbro. Roy stood above the corner urging me on
but sensing the inner debate. ‘It’s easy – just move out and up. Then it’s
straightforward from up here.’ I thought of the rope, useless in the sacks
discarded below the summit of the previous peak. ‘I am not doing it’ I said with growing
relief. He persisted and protested but
he had seen the wobble and then the resolution before and he knew I had already
turned round. In my head at least. So
that’s Skye for you - scree or scary.
The day was perfect – warm in the sun
and cool in the corries. The Cuillin gives that wonderful contrast between
sun-warmed and cool shadowed gabbro. The rough rock varies in texture and
temperature endlessly as the day progresses linking your senses to the hill
through your slowly bloodying finger tips.
The path ran up past the gorge and up
through the outer corrie to the rocky inner corrie which itself gave up under
the long scree gully up to An Dorus –
visible above as a notch of deep blue in the skyline. I reached the narrow notch quickly despite the
backsliding on the scree , enjoying the evolving rock scene and the texture of
the rough gabbro under my fingers. On
the right stood the scratched rock wall blocking progress to Greadaidh and
slightly up and over the col was the route to Mhadaidh – up a gully above a
remnant of snow running down the first few metres on the east side. I picked
slowly up the gully looking deeply and breathing deeply at each hold . After
the few short metres it opened out and I was up onto a flattish area where low
stone walls have been built as bivouacs. An open face leaned against the main ridge
and stretched away to the summit. I picked my way up the briefest scratches of
a path and suddenly emerged on the summit with its wild eastern exposure.
Coruisk, massive and grey in the sunlight echoed far below. South down the ridge lay my way to Greadaidh
– foreshortened, black and threatening. Any confidence I had built ebbed away
into the depths of the corrie below and I clung to the rock and my rucksack as
I ate a quick meal. No place for me to linger.
But in retreat, the pitch was less intimidating and the dark shadow of
the gully faded to a reality of easy moves above a manageable drop.
Round on the Glen Brittle side I
examined the climb out of An Dorus with a calmer eye. Doable and not exposed –
my kind of bad step. I was up the difficult 10 feet quick with some minor
scraping and wheezing and got a clearer
view of the route ahead – less scary, less foreshortened. The day was coming
together and my confidence was building. I traversed up some open, shallow
slabs with the deep sword slash of the Eag Dubh still holding snow in its
depths and then up and round the Wart to the ridge itself. The next short section was straightforward
and reminiscent of other narrow places on the mainland with a clear path
working through boulders. I reached the cairn in good humour with only a small
amount of fearful hand scrabbling and shuffling. To the south and to my alarm
stretched a long saw tooth ridge topped at the far end – maybe 200 metres away
by a second cairn. From here it looked higher. I sat down by the northern cairn
and racked my brains. The guidebook was safe in the car but did it say the
northern or southern peak was higher? I knew that I could sit here until the
next ice age and not know for sure. No
option but the traverse out and back along the roofline of Skye to that distant
cairn. I dumped the sack and set off.
The shuffling reached critical levels after a few minutes tottering along the
edge and I resorted to au cheval bum shuffling before finally panicking and
heading down to a small rake on the Brittle side which led with some difficulty
beyond the south peak to the south ridge.
As I scrambled own to the rake my self-loathing of this gripping fear
reached new levels. You complete dick – this ground is far more difficult than
the ridge itself. But I could cope with more technical ground as long as the
exposure was reduced.
I doubled back along the south ridge
which yielded easily to the cairn above. The reverse view of the Greadaidh
ridge clearly showed the north peak to be higher. This was a double blow – not
only was all that faff and fear to reach the south peak unnecessary but so was
the current prospect of the return and the possibility of a screaming descent
into the depths of Coruisk. You complete
and utter dick. Bring the guidebook.
Rain on
gabbro and slick scree and steep grass. Somewhere above us in the deep mist the
pinnacle sat leaning back against Sgurr Dearg. About 2000 feet up under a vague
crag we thought better of it and turned back down. The wind blew squalls and
showers into our backs all the way down Corrie Lagan and the sheep fouled path
to the Hostel.
Pinnacle Ridge on a day of swirling
mist. The first three pinnacles yielded to easy and relaxed scrambling before
we gathered ourselves above the big drop and uncoiled the rope . The climb went
by quickly before I found myself tottering on exposed slabs high up on the
summit peak of Gillean. The world sloped downward at a constant angle all around me. Anywhere
else it would have been horrible but the combination of sticky gabbro and mist
obscured exposure made it work for me and shortly the summit somehow appeared
on my left. Given that the ridge was taken head on we must have been hugely off
route but I did not care - the top was tiny but reassuringly flat. We scrambled down the West ridge and descended
to the screes down some slimy chimney since the continuation of the ridge was
designated as dangerous after the recent suicide of the Gendarme. Understandable – the exposure maybe got to
him. We reascended to Am Bhastier and trod
the ridge ahead nervously waiting for the tricky section to appear. I climbed down into a notch and scrambled up
the other side. Once back up on the ridge we chatted across the narrow gap and
agreed that the hard bits must be further on. Guinness took three steps back
and then launched himself across the gap landing with a sprachle at my feet.
‘Easy’ he said. The top of Bhastier came with no further bad step but half
sensed and awesome exposure down through the mist. Swirls of cloud moved verticality
up the crags below the summit before curving and breaking over the top. Back
down at the gap we concluded that he had in fact jumped the crux. Back on the
screes Bruach na Frithe was now in sight beyond the vertical black monster
crags of Bhastier. It would be my hundredth Munro so there would be no turning
back today. The hill is an easy walk in comparison to what had gone before and
for the first time the mist lifts to reveal the sea and rock of Skye. Unique
and surreal scenery stretched down the spine of the Cuillin to its terminal
peak pointing out towards Ardnamurchan and Rum.
Only the pterodactyls were missing.
The day of
the pinnacle and the first surprise was immediate. The first few moves off the
ground felt like real rock climbing. In fact all the way to the first stance
seemed like a regular pitch. Maybe it
was the polished dolerite – if you ignored the exposure it could have been the
crag outside Glasgow where I used to go top-roping. As a strategy for the day that worked well
for me - ignore the exposure and think
about top-roping. Standing on the stance
is a study in focus. On the screes below Roy had said ‘ keep the ball on the
deck’ about 100 times and I repeated it as a mantra. I can see the mainland from here – keep the
ball on the deck – I can’t see the bottom of the Pin on either side but I can
see straightdown to the corrie floors on either side – keep the ball on the
deck.....
The last
pitch is closer to horizontal than vertical but the sense of exposure is
overwhelming. The view stretches to 60
miles in all directions and is not obscured by anything other than a couple of
feet of rock leading up to the bolster stone.
At the top there was a short wait on the flat while Roy sorts out the abseil and I
concentrated on screening out my peripheral vision. He called me down to the stance under the
summit and clipped me to the nice sturdy chain. I assumed I was going first so
when he set himself up and leaned back I felt the ball rising from the
deck.
‘You canny
leave me up here, wee man – surely I should go first?’
‘Me first
and then I can protect your ab - or d’ye
fancy swinging out round the face?’
‘Fair
enough........’
He reached
the slabs under the pinnacle and after a while shouted up for me to ab when
ready. I checked the descender and the screwgate again and then again and
then leaned back gingerly. One or two
scrabbly slips on the upper slab created the picture in my head of swinging
free in space round the steep side before I reached the steeper rock beneath
and then finally the terra firma of Sgurr Dearg. The ball was back on the deck. A pinnacle no longer inaccessible but I still
had a lingering sense of my own unworthiness, a certainty that I had borrowed
the bottle for the climb. Still this is how I would do this.
So these scattering of days on the
ridge above the sea have taught me the Cuillin. I have the gabbro scars on my
fingers and I have seen the roseroot on the screes. My boots have left careful
prints in the black sand on the lochan in Grunnda and I have heard the eagles
echo in Coruisk. But I have also learned
that my place is not here amongst the pinnacles and sparkling rocks of the
Cuillin. All this is alien to me and I cannot love it - this other place of
gravity between the sea and the deep blue Cuillin sky.
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