Around us like spirits released

[nigheandonn]

I suddenly took a notion to go back to HebCelt this summer - I'd had a ticket for summer 2020, and we all know how that ended up, but having done a handful of things this year that I meant to do then, why not one more. I thought at first of heading to Ullapool or Inchnadamph on the way, but islands won in the end, especially as there was a night available at Sligachan even at the last minute - for a ridiculous price, but it was something I wanted to do once.

Getting an afternoon on Skye meant a 4:30 start to the day - out just as the sun was rising, and dodging some kind of snail convention all the way along the pavement. The bus was late, only mildly worrying for me but more for a man who was trying to catch the 6:25 Campbeltown bus from Glasgow rather than the 6:40 Uig one.

I'd hoped to sleep through the dull bit to Glasgow, but it didn't work out that way - wide awake all along the M8, and then dozing all the way up Loch Lomondside. I hauled myself awake somewhere around Ardlui since it was a shame to miss the less familiar part of the journey - lovely cloud patterns on the hills around Bridge of Orchy, and the wild moors. North of Fort William the road was surprisingly unfamiliar - it's a long time since I went to Skye that way, rather than on the Mallaig or Kyle train, and I remembered less about it than I thought I did. But I remembered the first views of the Skye hills from around Dornie, and from Kyle it was familiar enough.

I hadn't had any idea in mind except to go up to Bruach na Frithe and cope with it or not, but the cloud had been on the tops of the hills all the way up the road, and the first Skye hills weren't any different, so that it looked like another plan might be needed. I'd wanted a new hill, but for some reason I settled on the fact that there was always Marsco - the hill I'd almost made it to the top of six years earlier.

I left my luggage in the hotel and headed out again - the cloud was just touching the tops of the high hills at that point, and it might have been ok, but I didn't want just ok for the first time, I wanted a day like the one I'd had on Bla Bheinn.

So, Marsco. I'd had an idea that when I went back to it I would head up from the top of Loch Ainort for a change, and I could have got a bus back down there, but it had been a long day already, and at this point I was quite happy with the simple plan.

Marsco

As before, the crowds faded very quickly once I left the bridges and the statue and headed along the path - hardly anyone seems to want to wander into the glen even while the paths are still good. The only difficult part of the route is getting started - the description says that the path crosses several small streams before meeting a wider one, but I kept meeting streams wider than all those before without finding a path, knowing that the last time I'd missed the turn and gone too far.

When I did find the right stream, at the point where I though I must be too close to the bottom of the hill and would just scout on a last bit to be sure, it was not just wider but much rockier, with a little boggy path running off to join it.

Finding the burn

It stays like that up into the little valley between Marsco and Beinn Dearg Mheadhonach, broad but filled as much with red stones as with water.

Rocks and water

After the first boggy stretch the path is much better for quite a while, but further on everything got unexpectedly lush, grass and heather and bracken trying to swallow the path - although it did look lovely.

Green path

A steep place near the top of the valley where the path was all crumbling away at least brought me to the level of this lovely moth in the heather.

Magpie moth

This time I managed to keep on the right side of the burn up to Mam a' Phiobuill, with an assortment of peaks starting to come into view. It already felt quite a long way by this point, and it is the bulk of the distance, but the bulk of the climbing is still to do.

Reaching the col

Marsco is a less regular shape than it looked from the end, with the great scoop of Coire nan Laoigh out of it - the summit is at the top of the nearer side, but the path leads up the gentler far side.

Coire nan Laoigh

A line of peaks

My 'summit' views were mostly taken on the way up, for fear of the cloud getting worse, and the view from the climb is a dramatic one - Belig, Garbh-bheinn, Clach Glas, Bla Bheinn. What I find fascinating is that there's no real divide between the Red and Black Cuillins - Belig is red, Clach Glas is black, and somewhere in between it changes from one to the other at height, not as two sides of a valley fault.

A burn again

I think there is a path all the way now following the fence posts, although I lost it occasionally on the way up - lower down it dodges around and over scattered rocks, further up it's a line of earth steps in the grass.

Path and fenceposts

As I made it to the ridge and the views of the far side the cloud was just beginning to touch hills which had been clear, and the main ridge was still topped with cloud. There was a good view down to Loch nan Creitheach just the same, and the weird scarred lump of Ruadh Stac.

Loch view

I hadn't gone out to the little grassy peak at the south end of the ridge, but the view was presumably just as good looking back over it.

Mountain view

I think this was about as far as I got the last time - I just started to climb the slope along the ridge in thick cloud, and then turned back. This time although the cloud was lurking it was still fairly clear, and I was looking down now on the pink scree of Beinn Dearg Mheadhonach, which had been at my left hand all the way up the burn.

Beinn Dearg Mheadhonach

When the ridge got narrow it really did - I decided that I didn't like it very much, and then realised that I was still right on top, and there was a path a couple of feet lower made by people who'd liked it even less!

Marsco summit

But it was a bit nerve wracking, especially as the wind began to gust just as I got to the narrowest place, and it ended as a dash to the summit and a dash back again.

The summit ridge

I was right to turn back before, anyway - not that I couldn't necessarily have done it, even in the cloud, but I don't think I could have done it and got back for the bus.

Leaving the ridge I did exactly what I did the last time - found myself on a path surprisingly quickly, and then realised it was the wrong path, a smooth groove instead of the hollowed steps. I meant to stick to it, but it crossed a very worn loose patch which I didn't fancy, so that I headed back to the other path, lower down the slope.

The wrong path

Then just retracing my steps - it was getting on for 6, but I wasn't the last person on the hill this time, because I met two others coming up. Back to the burn, where I had a drink, and then a bit the wrong way this time back towards the good path by the other burn, with some slightly unexpected sunlight slanting onto the flatter ground behind Sligachan, which still seemed a long way off.

View of Sligachan

The cloud was starting to move in properly by the time I got onto the main path, touching the top of Marsco and cutting dramatically between Nead na h-Iolaire and the higher hills on the other side of the river. It was a bit later than I had hoped, but it had calmed down enough for me to get a quiet picture of the statue.

The statues

Then back to retrieve my luggage, and to the pub end of the range of buildings for dinner, and quite early to bed in spite of the light, because it had been a long day.