HighlandSC wrote:Just been reading some reports and the walk description of this again and am curious to know the justification for including this in the "Summits climbed" section of the walk - when the description states it avoids the summit?
Am I being picky? But surely a summit is a summit and you can't summit a mountain without going to the summit, right?
I wanted to put the walk on as Grade 3 as the walk isn't so long and is done by lots of inexperienced hillwalkers. This meant the description had to advise giving the summit a miss! But then if I put it on as Grade 5 alot less people would choose it.
On the other hand, it seemed a bit strange to have a route on Stac Pollaidh and a page for the Graham Stac Pollaidh and not to link them together. It's up to users to decide whether they want to consider it bagged or not - you can always unclick the Graham. It's the same situation with the Cobbler really - probably the majority of ascents recorded don't include the actual summit, but many of the walkers will say they've done the Cobbler. Hope that makes some sort of sense
HighlandSC wrote:Apart from the pics posted here - which seem to be the final scramble to the West summit - is there anything of concern going along the ridge from East to West?
There's plenty of scrambling, hard or easy as you like, the ridge is very complex with many possible routes but not any impassable obstacles that come close to the difficulty of the final tower.
rspat wrote:The gully option is really fairly easy, though the gully is quite steep and loose - you do not have to actually ascend the leaning slab in the photo, the route is through the gap between the slab and the mountain proper to connect with a short gully on the other side. On return, the route feels safer due to the slab acting as a chockstone which floors the gully you're descending.
I had heard of such a route, but when I was there I had a good look around for different ways around the tower and I didn't see it
I decided the best way was directly up the tower
