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According to Sky Scrambles, the tricky part of this route is getting up Gillean after Am Basteir. Everything else has a scrambling grade but the easiest way up the west ridge of Gillean has a moderate climbing grade.
Drove up on Friday night and got to Sligachan at the back of 9. Got out to take this pic and a cloud of midges formed around me.
Moved to a layby past the start of the walk, folded down the back seats and slept in the car - good for avoiding midges but it doesn't really get dark in Sky in the summer apparently. View from the car in the morning: up the right hand ridge and back down the left hand ridge.
Road to the white cottage, the path to Glen Brittle branches off before the cottage.
Waterfalls en route, Pinnacle Ridge on the left and North West Ridge on the right.
Took a left at a cairn for the path to Fionn Choire then took a right here to head towards the ridge. Hot day already and no breeze in the coire - went to a burn for a drink but the water had a sheep/chemical smell.
Ridge
Path zig zags up scree then the ridge narrows.
Good scrambling on the crest or a bypass path on the right. I stuck to the crest to practise for the tricky stuff later, most of the rock is good but there's some loose flake with hairline cracks.
Southern Cuillin, bit of a haze today that never lifted.
Summit of Bruach na Frith ahead.
From the left: Knight's Peak, Gillean, Am Basteir and Sgurr a'Fionn Choire
Gillean from Bruach trig
South Cuillin
Am Basteir...The Executioner
Back to Bruach with the NW ridge on the right. Met a guy who had come up the coire, he was going to Bruach then had the same plan for Am Basteir and Gillean.
Bypassed Sgurr a'Fionn Choire and Am Basteir on the left, tried a shortcut along the crest before the tooth but it got a bit desperate so I had to backtrack. Got to the start of Basteir East Ridge with snow and scree in my shoes and the other walker had caught up, he had climbing gear with him which was handy.
Towards the bad step on Basteir
Didn't read the description of the bad step bypass path properly so missed the start of it and got on the wrong side of the wall. Faffed around for a while looking for it then gave up so I descended a dodgy wall and he went to abseil the bad step, so we ended up on different sides of the step at the same time. A guide & client had passed us while we were searching and they were on their way back the step. I had a look at the holds they were using and the guide let the other walker use his rope to down climb. looked easy enough but I could see where all the holds were from my side. The guide said the bad step was the easiest way to the summit, which is probably true if you've done it loads of times and have a rope. Climbing up was straightforward on good holds.
Gillean from Basteir. The path goes to the foot of the West Ridge on Gillean, then a ledge leads to the left to a few chimneys. Tooth Chimney is recessed in from the ledge and just before it there's are a couple of rocks/boulders that mark the start of Tooth Groove & Arete, which is our route.
Tooth Chimney on the left, Groove & Arete on the right. There are quite a few climbers abseiling down the chimney so a couple bypassed this bottleneck by descending the groove.
Tooth Groove & Arete. The groove is a bit greasy but not as vertical as Tooth Chimney. Plenty of holds so it's like going up steps, one of the climbers who descended it faced out. Up the right had groove at the start then straight up where they merge.
So the groove was easy, what about the arete? The book describes delicate moves in a very exposed position: there are a few small pinnacles with a big drops at the sides. I let the other guy go first
. I had read a few reports on Scottish Hills: reach round to the right of the first boulder for a handhold and move round as you hug the rock. People belaying the chimney told us to go over the top of the next one, had to do a bit of smearing but the rock had good grip. Then an exposed step over to another block with better holds on it. Nothing really difficult... if it was at ground level
After that, everything felt easy on the rest of the ridge.
Am Basteir & Bruach na Frithe from the top. A large group had just come over Pinnacle Ridge and were descending West Ridge and some folk had come up the SE ridge so it was a busy summit. Hung about for a while, agreed that having other people on the arete is good for confidence.
Narrow ledge after the summit
We went down some slabs to the right on the way down.
Ran out of water at the top so kept thinking about cans of coke in a cool bag in the car. My companion was headed to the Slig for a pint, I had a 4.5 hour drive home. Great day.