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rum by
John Little, on Flickr
Just thought I'd add my tuppence worth on the Rum Cuillin traverse from yesteryear. I actually stitched together those poor quality Mintola pocket camera photo scans fourteen years ago but only last week got the panorama recovered from the broken PC on which it sat. Still got the photos and negatives but no scanner at the moment but hoping to resolve that soon and can then maybe add some more pictures and some more Rum tales.
Anyway, the traverse took place on a long Easter weekend trip and was my second day of walking after a longish day walking out to and back from Orval and Bloodstone Hill with sleeping bag in tow in case I decided to stay at Guirdil (I didn't). So I was tired enough from that first day but excellent weather the next day saw me setting off from Kinloch early on for the main ridge. I was there with a student walking club but I'd gone to Bloodstone on my own with a copy of Hamish Brown's Rum book with me and inspiring me. I don't know why folk would go all the way to Rum just to drink but I think few did just that but they in turn possibly also wondered why someone had come all the way to Rum to walk to Bloodstone by themselves and not drink.
I actually took in Barkeval first off and on returning to the bealach bumped into a couple of others from our club also on their way up to the main ridge. Made sense to walk together so we went on our way as a group for the rest of the day.
Hallival presented a fine tapering prospect ahead and the top didn't take too long to reach. Great views across to Askival beyond.
The narrow neck of ridge up to Askival did present the possibility of a serious looking scramble on the Askival pinnacle but no-one fancied it so we opted to stick to the path up. No matter, the setting was grand enough and it was exceptionally fine weather -clear skies and a mild breeze. The top of Askival was a bit of a disappointment in one sense -that it just consisted of a large flat boulder strewn plateau. In another sense it was phenomenal -a sweeping panorama of the ridge beyond with views further south over Eigg to Mull. Just amazing.
The descent to the next bealach seemed to take an age. Well at 400m+ through a steepish mix of rock and scree it is a fair bit of down before the next up. A surprisingly easy ascent to Trollval's twins followed, a narrow easy scramble in between with Eigg again providing a dramatic backdrop though I think one or both of my cameras let me down a bit here either through running out of film or battery or both though I have got half a picture of the scene somewhere (the end bit of a film).
Another slightly awkward descent to the foot of Ainshval followed by a steep but fairly clear route up then more or less an easy stroll right to the end of Sgurr nan Gillean (though a look at the map slightly disputes that). A little bit of a sting in the tail with the steepest descent of the day down a grassy gully for the first part. Thereafter though just steep grass.
By the time we got to Dibidil I was struggling but one of my companions eagerly offered to carry my rucksack for part of the way. Being a simple and naïve soul I only thought of this as a generous offer and happily agreed, not realising there was a price of sorts attached.
After really dragging myself over that last five miles back to Kinloch I was disappointed to say the least to hear that I'd had to be rescued by my heroic companion! I suppose I should have just laughed that off but it was so stupid that it was annoying or maybe I was too tired to see the funny side. Well I can choose to separate the fantastic walk from the mildly irritating after words.
