Friday 1 October 2010

OM Skye meet, September 2010. Day three 16th September.

After a successful Tuesday on the northern
end of the ridge, Iain gave the clients the opportunity to choose two more days out of the following three.

As the weather appeared to be forecast to improve, no-one made any move to get Iain up early on the wednesday. Obviously the group had made the decision to use Thursday & Friday as their remaining ridge days.

Iain & Chris took the opportunity for another "full english" in Portree before Iain decided they really should do something; and as Macleod's Tables were beckoning across Loch Bracadale they went & climbed those - two fine wee little hills!

Shot one on the following day shows the view into Coire Lagan towards Sgurr's Mhic Choinnich and Alasdair - at this point looking quite promising. Weather permitting, the plan was going to be to head straight up to the Bealach Mhic Choinnich and traverse Hart's (Collie's) Ledge on to Sgurr Mhic Choinnich and then continue on to Sgurr Dearg to climb the Inaccessible Pinnacle if possible, before continuing on to Sgurr Na Banachdich and Sgurr A Greadhaidh if time & conditions allowed.


Unfortunately, after arriving in Coire Lagan, the cloud rolled in and it began to rain very heavily - no conditions for attempting a traverse of Hart's Ledge! and so the team ascended An Stac Screes to the bealach Coire Lagan.

Here, the wind was gusting and the weather consisted of showers of rain, at times containing hail and some snow.

It was decided to attempt to gain the summit of Mhic Choinnich from the bealach and this is a view from the Bealach Coire Lagan to Mhic Choinnich (left of centre) and Sgurr's Alasdair & Sgumain (right of centre & right) during a break in the weather. The party did succeed in reaching the top of Mhic Choinnich before backtracking to the bealach in, at times, particularly foul and cold conditions, but we made it!





In shot three we were halfway between the Bealach Coire Lagan and the summit of Mhic Choinnich.

Following our return to the Bealach Coire Lagan we ascended the basalt dyke running up under An Stac all the way to the Inaccessible Pinnacle.

Even though it seemed to be drying up, there were still tremendous volumes of water pouring down into the coire below and the In Pin was dripping wet,
unfortunately, it didn't make it ideal for an ascent!




Whilst we were on top of Sgurr Dearg however, the weather again cleared up, the sun came out and once again, the ridge and almost all of Skye put in an appearance for us - another sunny finish to the day!

We made short work of the traverse from here to the summit of Sgurr Na Banachdich from where shot four was taken looking back along the whole of the southern part of the Cuillin Ridge. We lingered here awhile enjoying the views before decending via
Coir An Eich to a waiting car at Glen Brittle Youth Hostel - a satisfying end to another satisfying day.

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