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Skye Farce 2?

Skye Farce 2?


Postby kjudge6 » Sun Jun 27, 2010 10:47 pm

Date walked: 27/06/2010

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Did my first trip in Skye on Friday (25th of June), and what should of been a fantastic experience turned out to be a disheartening and frankly deplorable realisation of the attitude of other mountaineers.
Having just climbed Sgurr nan Gillean, we descended for Am Basteir, and having researched the route and maps, and confirming with 'compleaters' we had a fair amount of confidence on the task ahead.
Being polite we hung back as a guided party ascended to near our position, and not wanting to add to the anxieties of these climbers, we thought we were doing a good turn.
But no sooner had one party climbed up, another guide urged his party down, in utter disbelief of his ignorance, he went on to comment on our climbing grade skills???
It appears that priority on the Skye Munros goes to those who have paid to be on them and certain superficial guides who act as if they own them.
Has anyone else experienced this??

Full praise must be given to the Mountain guide Martin Welch, who encouraged and helped us, on a day where the arrogance of certain individuals nearly beat us rather than the climb itself!
Thanks again to Martin.
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Re: Skye Farce 2?

Postby malky_c » Mon Jun 28, 2010 9:22 am

Seems like the Alpine guide mentality is moving over here...

To be fair, I think it is a very small minority of guides that act like this, but I've encountered this kind of attitude once on Sgurr Thearlaich a few years back.

Best to ignore it and not let it ruin your day.
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Re: Skye Farce 2?

Postby Caberfeidh » Mon Jun 28, 2010 9:27 am

malky_c wrote:Best to ignore it and not let it ruin your day.


Or you just wait til they're below you and take a pee over the edge... :D
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Re: Skye Farce 2?

Postby kevsbald » Mon Jun 28, 2010 10:15 am

Or just tell him to stop being an utter tool and suggest a square go back at the Slig? :)
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Re: Skye Farce 2?

Postby danrun » Mon Jun 28, 2010 10:29 am

i'm sure doin this:

Caberfeidh wrote:Or you just wait til they're below you and take a pee over the edge... :D

would result in this:

kevsbald wrote:a square go back at the Slig? :)


:lol: :lol: :lol:


never let other peoples attitudes spoil your enjoyment of our hills...
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Re: Skye Farce 2?

Postby malky_c » Mon Jun 28, 2010 10:34 am

I was more thinking that with a slight breeze, Caberfeidh's solution would backfire spectacuarly!
(well it probably would for me anyway).
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Re: Skye Farce 2?

Postby kjudge6 » Mon Jun 28, 2010 8:34 pm

malky_c wrote:Seems like the Alpine guide mentality is moving over here...

To be fair, I think it is a very small minority of guides that act like this, but I've encountered this kind of attitude once on Sgurr Thearlaich a few years back.

Best to ignore it and not let it ruin your day.


This is totally true, and like I said the attitude and encouragement offered by Martin Welch was exceptional.
He proved that not all mountain guides share the attitude of ownership and superiority, that excludes any hill-walker, climber or mountaineer that hasn't paid for the right to be on a ridge or scramble.

I might be sounding pretty harsh here, but the time taken to research the ascent and route, the building of confidence, fitness and practice on many other munros and scrambles, reserving time from other commitments, the cost of fuel and travel time to get to Skye and the effort to actually getting up and over the first summit, to NOT be able to even have a look at a scramble is really hard to take!
Possibly I couldn't manage it and I would have maybe put my hands up and admit defeat on it, but we never got a chance to have a look and assess it!!!

Nevermind, everything did turn out great though, and we enjoyed the 3 Munros of Sgurr nan Gillean, Am Basteir and Bruach na Frithe!
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Re: Skye Farce 2?

Postby fingeez » Mon Jun 28, 2010 10:35 pm

Hey Kjudge

Nice to see more from perth on here :)

I was a little confused reading your post, was it a guide from a different party, telling another guide and party to turn back and go back down? Were you in a guided party? Also did you turn back after this incident?

Ross
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Re: Skye Farce 2?

Postby kerrera » Mon Jun 28, 2010 10:47 pm

I tend to stay away from munros, but i'm quietly confident there's more than one way up.
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Re: Skye Farce 2?

Postby mountain coward » Tue Jun 29, 2010 4:14 am

Until you get to The Cuillin then I'm not so sure... I'm usually the expert at finding coward's routes up things but am pretty sure I'll never 'compleat' as I'm sure I can't find coward's routes up the Cuillin :(
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Re: Skye Farce 2?

Postby kjudge6 » Tue Jun 29, 2010 8:35 am

fingeez wrote:Hey Kjudge

Nice to see more from perth on here :)

I was a little confused reading your post, was it a guide from a different party, telling another guide and party to turn back and go back down? Were you in a guided party? Also did you turn back after this incident?

Ross


Sorry for any confusion.

We never used a guide to get on the hills or over the first summit, it was a couple of guides from other parties, which dismissed our existence!

I was getting pretty impatient (and possibly going to try something reckless) and my friend suggested we cut our losses, admit defeat and head back over the first summit. We started climbing and were stopped by Martin, who asked what was up? And after explaining what had happened, he asked the couple that he was guiding if they didn't mind in getting these two disheartened guys down.

At no point were we looking for charity, or went all that way just to "chance our mit" at getting help.
Like I said we didn't even get close to have a look at the scramble, which (understandably) infuriated me the most!

To their credit the couple were lovely and insisted that we should accept the offer of kindness, and when Martin asked "Can you abseil boys?", it was the perfect comment and attitude to hear.

After the abseil, we thanked them all again, they were off to the pub (after doing the whole ridge over 2 days - one of the party being a 66 year old guy) and we cracked on to Am Basteir and Bruach na Frithe. My friend caught a glimpse of "the scramble" from the bottom and felt quietly confident that we would have been able to do it, but that was in the past now. We tackled 'the bad step' with no problems and enjoyed the spectacular views of a cloud free Cuillin ridge.

The contrasting attitudes that day were remarkable, and thanks and appreciation must go to the consideration of these 3 helpful people for their time and altruism.
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