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I grew up on Skye but never once set foot in the Cuillins. I decided that now was the time to change this. Reading about the Cuillins it all sounded pretty scary but as a novice Bla Bheinn seemed managable. My walking companion Brian and myself were on a two day trip with a stay over in Portree. After doing A' Chralaig and Mullach Fraoch Choire day one and having a wee pub crawl in Portree that night. We set off for Bla Bheinn the next day, but not before visiting MacKenzie's Bakery in Portree for some magnificent bacon and black pudding rolls
. After turning off at Broadford onto the Elgol road, we found ourselves on a single track road. After about 4 miles our car rounded a corner and there in front of us was the magnificent but imposing sight of Bla Bheinn. Myself and Brian looked at each other wondering what we had let ourlelves in for and for a brief moment considered turning back. My experience so far of Munros were hills that had grass and heathery slopes, this looked like a scary MOUNTAIN!
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- View from Torrin across Loch Slapin to Bla Bheinn
We arrived at the car park just before 11am and set off back along the road and over the bridge. The path headed along the right bank of the river towards the hill. The path is very good and easy to follow.
Soon the path neared a waterfall.
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- Brian wondering how on earth we are going to get to the summit!
The path crosses the crystal clear river over some stepping stones and headed into Coire Uaigneich.
Here you have to cross the river again and the path starts to become more scree like and starts to gain height.
From reading other reports, this path goes into a gulley but if you stay on it you will miss the path striking up to the right. On the way back down, Brian and myself decided to mark, for other walkers, a small cairn, so they don't waste time like we did looking for the way up.
As you look up, the way is not evident but there is a rocky outcrop and the path goes to the left of it.
The path now zig zags up the hill.
After a while you reach a stone chute which requires a little bit of scrambling.
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- Taking a breather after scrambling up the chute.
The path now started to level off.
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- Brian with the Islands of Soay and Rum in the background.
There were great views of the Red Cullins.
As we neared the summit, I was worried that we might need to do some serious scrambling, luckily this was not the case.
Near the summit there were some great views but higher up the top was covered in mist.
As we approached the summit, the mist was down to about 50 ft.
Munro number 5 completed after 2 hours. We were disappointed with the view as there was none. I had seen photos of the view online but was disappointed that we could not see the main Cuillin Ridge.
We stopped and had lunch and after 20 minutes we were packing up and resigning ourselves to the fact that we would miss out on a spectactular view and were just about to head back down, when as if by magic, the clouds started to part, like someone was opening a curtain,to reveal the main ridge. WOW what a sight!
Soon the clound curtain closed again but we were happy that we had got a glimpse on the Cuillin Ridge. We decided to have a look at the route to the south summit but decided against taking that route down, instead we headed back down the way we came.
On the way down, we avoided the scrambling chute and veered right to go down a scree gully.
4 and a half hours later we were back at the car park having completed what we thought was going to be a scary climb but turned out to be an enjoyable walk with some spectacular views.
