Sgurr nan Gillean - JC's 1st Round Complete!!

[Stuart Blakeley]

Our final hill after a hectic week (for JC and Andy anyway, I only arrived for yesterdays (long walk) and our fellow walker Donnie's daughter's wedding we were all invited to.

We travelled up from the Ledgowan bunkhouse and parked up at the Sligachan Hotel to commence our final Munro of this trip (and JC's final Munro). It was a beautiful morning and we were looking forward to this hill and the subsequent festivities in a large marquee at Loch Storr.

We set off around 10am and enjoyed the long walk in via an excellent and well used path. When we finally reached the wide scree gulley we carried on our walk up this very loose and difficult terrain and missed the small cairn taking you up the tourist route and we headed up as far as we could to the top of the gulley.

On reaching this point, JC went first and climbed up over a large slab and skirted round the back and up onto a ledge. I scrambled up a slightly different section and both JC and I on meeting on the ledge agreed that neither route was recommended to go back down!

Andrew, at this point decided he would head back and wait for us at the car (he had done this hill before).

JC and I navigated our way up to the summit after about 40 minutes and enjoyed the (very small but welcomed) summit. We had to decide best route back down and we quickly found the tourist path and headed back down to the scree gulley.

We had left our bags at the point of scrambling so had to head back up to this point to collect our bags and head back down.

The views were spectacular and I was walking out with a very happy walker (JC) who has now bagged all the Munros.

On meeting Andy back at the Slig, we enjoyed some grub and some Euro 2012 football before headed back to our digs in Portree to get ready to join day 3 of a 4 day wedding. Late night and a joint celebration was had by all.

Congratulations to JC and to J&S on their wedding!

Andrew & JC on our walk in

Local Wildlife!

Over towards Bla Bheinn

Back up towards Sligachan and Portree

JC waiting for us as usual on the scree slope!

At the summit cairn

[scoob999]

Well done on compleating jc
Good one to finish on

[mrssanta]

well done JC