I first saw Suilven in the pages of a Readers Digest guide to touring Britain book back in the mid 1990s and was instantly struck by it. The photo was the view towards Meall Meahonach. When I found out it's location, it felt out or reach all the way up in Sutherland, about 700 miles away from where I live in East Hampshire. Our last holiday in Scotland was in 1996 and Suilven partially faded from memory until I became a regular internet user and started to Google images of it. In the intervening y time we raised a family and after a few years, I began to plan a family holiday to Scotland. Since I have a rather thirsty people carrier, we were only ever likely to have one family holiday in Scotland as the limiting expense was going to be fuel money.

By the time I came around to planning our holiday our eldest daughter Chloë, was in her last year of school and had developed an interest in hill/mountain walking. Among the mountains she had climbed were, Snowdon twice, Scafell Pike, Green Gable, Great Gable, Y Garn, The Pen Y Fan Horseshoe, The Carmarthen Fans, The Carneddau, Tryfan and had walked the West Highland Way with me 2013. As we were only going to do this once as a family, I planned a three week tour of the highlands with six days scheduled at Clachtoll Beach near Lochinver, with the prime objective being, a crack at Suilven.

Our 1st week was spent at Glen Nevis with an obligatory trip up the Ben which, our ten old son did with Chloë & I. After a trip up to John O Groats and an overnight stop at the Dunnet head, we drove across the top of Scotland to Durness before turning south towards Lochinver arriving at Clachtoll on Sunday 3rd in good sunshine. We enjoyed fantastic views across the far North of Scotland on our journey in with tantalising views of Suilven on the approach to Lochinver. The following day brought heavy rain and Suilven remained stubbornly hidden behind heavy clouds. The BBC weather forecast posted up in the Tourist Information centre didn't look very promising which made the prospects of an attempt on Suilven unlikely. However, the forecast on Metcheck looked a lot more promising with a good day in prospect for Thursday the 7th.

On Wednesday we all took a trip to the falls of Kirkaig which gave me a chance to gauge the route in. After looking at the falls, the rest of my wife, son and two daughters started back to the car after being lunched on by midgies while I climbed a small hill to take some pictures.

On my way back to the car I passed a Scottish couple who had made an attempt but had quit having started out a 11AM. They said they had planned to try again but would rough camp. A few doubts began to creep in but, I remembered that Chloë and I had completed the Yorkshire Three Peaks which covered more ground, had more ascent/descent and had a section of considerable boggy ground. With that in mind I was sure that given good conditions we could complete the walk in good time.

I had originally panned to go in from Inverkikaig because, on the OS map it appeared that there was a defined path for more of the walk than from Glencanisp lodge. After chatting to Jim the campsite owner at Clachtoll, on his recommendation I changed plans and opted to approach from Glencanisp Lodge instead.

Thursday morning came and our tent was illuminated by bright sunshine so, we got up instantly, gulped down some breakfast and headed off to the start. We had our first view of the mountain from a viewpoint on the Clachtoll road and although the summit was shrouded with clouds, the prospects otherwise looked promising.



After picking up a few provisions at the spar in Lochinver, we made our way up the Glencanisp lodge road to the start.

We began walking at around 9AM and made good progress. More importantly, the closer we got the more the cloud lifted. By the time we made it to the turn off after about an hour and a half, the summit was mostly clear. We stopped there off for a bite to eat before tackling the climb up across the boggy ground. The closer we got the main ascent so the weather improved.







It took about an hour to traverse the bogs and get the bottom of the main climb up to Bealach Mor and by the time we reached Loch a' Choire Dhuibh the summit had cleared nicely.



From there, it took us about another 45 minutes to ascend up to the Bealach itself with the views improving as we climbed higher.







Reaching Bealach Mor is in some ways more significant than the summit itself. The view that greets you as you step onto the narrow ridge just takes your breath away. It frustrates me that I don't have some poetic way to describe what I saw. The visual impact created by the way that the landscape opened out before my eyes, was like nothing else I have experience on a mountain anywhere. To anyone daunted by the prospect of the long walk in, crossing the bogs and steep climb, that moment when you step onto the ridge makes it all worth it. It was it this point I was glad that we approached from the North because views from the Bealach looking south were better than those looking north. The cloud had lifted and the lochs and lochans were a fantastic blue colour.