Culbin of the sands

Children need routine and my 3 year old boy is no different. It took a fair amount of effort to persuade him that our weekly adventure should go somewhere different to last week’s outing to the treehouses of Abriachan. I used some psychology along with the words ‘woods, beach and fire’ in quick succession and had him hooked and we were off for Culbin forest in the grey morning.

 We bundled into warm clothing and set off along the wide paths towards Tower 99 which was to be the big draw for the day. He made good pace, only halting occasionally to pick up something familiar from previous walks. ‘Old man’s beard!’ he yelled in triumph holding up a branch that was bigger than him festooned with moss. A few wobbly moments followed as he tired and then when I refused to pick up a massive pile of stones ‘for the big tower’ he descended into a wailing cry with some proper tears. I scooped him up while surruptiously dropping the stones and licked the tears from his face..’These ones on the left taste nice but the ones on the right are rubbish.’ It did not work and I left him bawling in a wee sandy hole next to the path. I got myself out of sight , crouched down and and waited and predictably he sprinted up the path and into my arms. Instantly better.

We reached the tower and climbed it nervously. My vertigo reached new heights as I scanned the slatted wood for small boy sized gaps and gripped him tight. He did not seem to like it much either as the wind bit down from the north and we headed down after some lip service to the views out as far as Caithness.

At the base of the tower the year had moved on from winter. The red trunks of the Scots pines  threw out some dappled light and meagre warmth so we huddled close on the bench to drink our flask and eat muffin treasure from the picnic box. His face looked back at me, framed with a flapped hat and lined with tears and chocolate and a challenge in his eye. ‘Are you enjoying this?’ I said fearfully. ‘Yes.’ Time to head to the beach, then.

We wandered off down a steep dune in the firm direction of the sea. He walked for a further half mile before he began to trail behind and held his arms up. By then, the wee legs had done nearly 2 miles and I could not say no so I swung him up on my shoulders and we jogged down to the edge of the water. As we stepped out from the margin of the forest the north wind picked us out. He looked up and said  ’This is a cold place.’ No fooling him today, this emerging outdoorsman. We turned quickly and found a sandy spot in the shelter of the great pines which line the shore. I scooped away the needles to make a fire pit and we construct a small pile of twigs, paper and one hidden firelighter to create the magic in front of his eyes. I thought it best to obey his mum’s instructions and prevent him from seeing the actual act in case he decided to replicate it in the living room so I distracted him with some pine cone gathering as I applied the match. The fire got going quickly and raised  a pall of smoke high in the pines.  I could picture a forestry commission swot team descending on me with beaters so I bottled it and smothered the fire quickly. We tidied the pit, packed and headed back to the car with a satisfying smoky flavour clinging to us.

We sped the journey up with joint Gruffalo recitals and some walks and some carrys get us back to the car with a sense of a day seized and a mission accomplished.   

Culbin’s aura of peace lingered on us for the rest of the day along with a faint, sweet smell of wood smoke.At the tower the seats carry a poem which summed up our day.

Hill 99

I stood one day upon the hill

And felt my shadow wheel full circle

I stood one day upon the hill

And saw the heather turn to purple

I stood one day upon the hill

And smelt the tang of marsh and sea

I stood one day upon the hill

And knew my soul returned to me

I stood one day upon the hill

And heard the coast birds pipe and call

I stood one day upon the hill

And dreamed of sailors in a squall

I stood one day upon the hill

And felt my gritted teeth bite the sand

I stand this day upon the hill

Knowing my heart rooted in this land

Feeling gravity's pull - Skye stories

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.