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Clisham has been on Denise's repeat list for twelve years, we enjoyed our ascent of it in 2010, we had Richard our youngest with us, he was 18 at the time and pretty eager to get going, we were part timers in the hills back then so we took it steady. From memory the weather was ok at the start, by the time we'd reached the summit the cloud was down and the rain had set in so we had no views, it was then Denise decided she wanted a repeat visit so she could see the views.
On the way down she slipped on a mossy rock about 150m below the summit, her foot bent under her leg and hurt her a lot, she thought it was a bad ankle sprain she could put a small amount of weight on her foot but not a lot, she wanted to continue down but very steadily, it took us five hours to get back to the car, she's made of tough stuff. Looking at her ankle when we got to the car we were concerned, once her boot was off it swelled to twice its size, a visit to the hospital was on the cards, she wanted to go the day after just to see if it was necessary, it was. She had an x ray at the hospital in Stornoway and, to her surprise, it was badly broken, "I didn't think it was that bad" she said. To cut a long story short there were several complications preventing treatment in Stornoway so she had to wait until we got home, our local hospital took x rays again and told us she needed an operation to plate the bone, blimey
so she became semi bionic
Three years later we decided to have a go at the Munros, Wainwrights, Corbetts etc, we've managed 200 munros together since then so that day on Clisham has had no lasting effects
and she still wanted a return visit
Back to Friday 5th August 2022
We wanted to do the WH direct route so there was no great rush to get going, Friday dawned wet and miserable, the opposite to what the Met Office was forecasting
we decided to wait until mid morning to see if it improved. By 10am it had, well, in Tarbert anyway. We set off to see what it was like closer to Clisham. When we arrived at the layby at the start it was chucking it down, we decided to wait a bit longer. After 20 minutes or so the rain turned to drizzle, sod it! we're going up
We set off walking at 10:50, the cloud was thinning and the sun looked like it might make a guest appearance
The initial stage of this walk is very soggy, in fact it reminded us a bit of the first few km's of the walk to do Gairich
so we had to get our bog hopping heads on.
The weather was improving as we went, the sun came out so it instantly became warmer, great stuff
As we climbed the clouds were lifting from the hills around us, the views were getting better.
Clisham
We lost the path higher up so resorted to the old "off piste" approach
and then found it again a little higher up. Now well clear of the soggy stuff the going was much easier if a little steep.
Layby zoomed
We tried to identify the approximate part of the hill where Denise had her slip 12 years ago (and avoid it like the plague) but, of course we couldn't
When we arrived at the bouldery section we knew we were near the summit.
At the summit we did manage to get views, not the glorious sunshine views we'd hoped for but we did get them, unlike 12 years ago this time we managed to get a look at the Clisham horseshoe a route we fancy doing on our next visit to Harris, soon we hope
Loch Seaforth
Horseshoe ahead
Summit views
We met a young guy from Hampshire on the summit, he can't have been much older than Richard was 12 yrs ago but he was backpacking all of the Outer Hebrides and climbing the hills, all solo, brave lad, good on him we thought, he's going to be a good 'un as he gets older, he offered to take our photo together on the summit
Ahhhhh aliens!!!!
He was staying on the summit a bit longer before he started his descent so we left him and started to make our way down. As we started the descent proper we slowed down, we weren't going to have a repeat of last time, not only that, our bodies are older so we naturally go slower, not being as flexible and all that and the creaky knees and the dodgy hips and the....................
We arrived at the car about 1.5 hrs after leaving the summit (much better than 5hrs)
it was a good feeling to have enjoyed the mountain this time, the weather was better, the descent was better, The Clisham horseshoe route is on the agenda now, I like the look of that now that we've seen it