11 May Skye – A Scramble in the Cuillins
Every spring we love to head into the mountains to experience a new wild landscape as well as road test our latest beans and kit for adventure. Last year we made it out for an incredible 10 days of hiking in the back country of Yosemite National Park. This year we stuck closer to home and took on the mighty Black Cuillin on Skye, that forbidding chain of shattered peaks that seems closer to Mordor than the West Coast of Scotland.
Needless to say the Cuillins didn’t disappoint. We scrambled up the Great Stone Chute onto the Cuillin Ridge to take in the truly sublime from the highest peak of Sgurr Alasdair on a clear day. We got caught in the mist while looking for a cave on the ridge and had to retreat in heavy rain down a series of rock buttresses, with no sure way of knowing where we were headed. No journey into the Cuillin is complete without a day ‘in the white room.’
So many memories to take away from the trip. The views across the sea to the outlines of Rum and Eigg from high in the bens, two ravens dancing in the wind on the summit of Blaven, the vast array of whiskies at the Slig. But the best of all came at the end of the trip when we caught the boat from Elgol across to Loch Courisk. From here we took on the Dubhs Ridge scramble, ending with a 20 metre overhanging absail from Sgurr Dubh Beag. Pure magic!
The coffee of choice for the trip was our Bolivian Mamani which went down a storm as aeropress on the hill. Special thanks to John Irvine at the Glen Brittle Memorial Hut and local guide Adrian Trendall for support and great advice. We’ll be back.
“Who is this, who is this in the night of the heart?
It is the thing that is not reached,
The ghost seen by the soul
A Cuillin rising over the sea”
Sorley MacLean
