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A last minute weather window had us shifting from Kintail to Skye for a later start on the Saturday morning. With not long to go until we're heading back to the 'real' Rockies, we jumped at the chance to get in some more practice for keeping up with Chris
not to mention the 11,000 footer that's in our sights
Mhadaidh and Ghreadaidh would get all the Round 2 ticks done on Skye for Scoob, but I still had a score to settle with the 'Pinn too since I'd offered to stay at the base and take photos the last time we were there
We left from the Youth Hostel and headed up the same path we'd taken just last Saturday for Banachdich. Thinking An Dorus might be a bottle-neck on such a good day (it was the first time I was here) we peeled off to head up Sgurr Thuilm first so we'd only pass through it once. Instead of heading up the long shoulder though, we cut a corner and ended up crossing the steep, scree-covered hillside
Kicking ourselves for not just going for An Dorus in the first place, but it did mean we had a longer ridge route, extra scrambling and scree practice
- scree slog up Sgurr Thuilm
- looking back to the start
- about to get on the ridge at last
- view North, across Coire a'Mhadaidh
- view to the South, our route for today
- skirting the rocks heading up Mhadaidh, not too far from An Dorus after all
By the time we reached that first summit, we'd taken almost 4 hours
Still, once you're up on the ridge, the summits aren't all that far apart - at least in terms of distance
So we carried on down through An Dorus (which of course was completely devoid of any other people, so no issues of waiting in a queue after all
) and up on to the summit of Ghreadaidh within an hour.
- looking across An Dorus (Scoob's video shows this better)
- view to Loch Coruisk
- summit pics :)
From Ghreadaidh summit, it was
just a case of carrying on over the ridge to Banachdich
We'd done our research - read up on reports (thanks Leithy!) and spoke to others who had done it (thanks Jonny!). More than happy this was very do-able for us, we carefully picked our way along the ups, downs and narrow bits.
- down climbs
- last of the teeth
No need to go over the third 'tooth' - we were more concerned with time disappearing by now and there was no way I was missing my chance to solo the In Pinn today
I know it's all relative to personal comfort zone, which changes with experience, but I didn't actually notice any worryingly narrow or exposed bits on that section. It was still the down climbs that are my own weakest link (I had to remind Scoob that 'down a bit, down a bit' doesn't really help, so please say L/R hand/foot instead
).
- heading up Banachdich
- across to Sgurr Dearg
- feeling it by now - a long way carrying the rope!
- Inaccessible Pinnacle!
And so we did it!
I did have a wee 'shaky leg' moment heading up the Pinn, more because I wasn't always too confident with where I was putting my feet to get a good push up - I didn't really notice the exposure (too busy concentrating on what I was doing!). Loved the abseil down though - that's still my favourite part
So when we headed off the ridge into Coire na Banachdich and lost the path
it was really quite exciting to be getting the rope & harnesses out again - made for an abseil down a waterfall instead of having to climb back up to find a better route. Caught a cracking sunset on the way out too, making it back to the car park without torches (just as well since they were still in the van!).
- interesting route down!
- bonus abseil :)
- sun sets on a most awesome day!
If you've made it to here, all the way through all those photos, well done!!
For an even better feel for our day and what that ridge is like,
here's Scoob's video 
