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It's a cold, cold winter day... Mountains of snow everywhere, temperatures plunging down to minus double digits. Not that I'm not used to it (where I come from winters with -20*C aren't anything unusual), but the Arctic-like weather makes me think about nice, warm summer holidays
Last summer we went to Isle of Skye for a week. It has already become our annual habit; we were camping in Sligachan, waking up every morning to the wonderful view of red and black Cuillins. Though weather wasn't up to our expectations (rain, clouds, wind, anything but snow
), we managed to "squeeze out" a couple of relatively good days, on one of which we climbed Marsco.
The mountain tempted us every time we looked at it. It is a nicely-shaped hill when seen from Sligachan campsite:
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- Marsco from Sligachan
From the campsite we took a well-maintained path, which starts by the old bridge. The views were splendid, with Sgurr nan Gillean to the right and almost perfect shape of Glamaig to the left. After about 4km we reached the bottom of Marsco so we could look at it from a slightly different perspective:
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- The hill viewed from the path for Loch Coruisk
There is a boggy path that branches left from the main one and follows Allt na Measarroch up to a very picturesque gorge and eventually to the bealach between Marsco and Beinn Dearg Mheadhonach. Then it turns right along the old fence.
As soon as we emerged from the glen, the tops of surrounding hills came to view, along with the panorama of Loch Ainort.
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- Loch Ainort
The climbing route followed the old fence; we walked along in the shadow of craggy walls of Coire nan Laogh.
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- Coire nan Laogh
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- The lost boot...
The final push to the ridge was very steep, but the views when we reached it were well worth the effort... To the south, the dark, knife-sharp edges of Blaven and Garb-bheinn, to the south-west - Loch Coruisk, and to the west - the Black Cuillins themselves, their tops cutting through white clouds...
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- The Cuillin ridge
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- Blaven and Garb-bheinn
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- Cuts like a knife...
The main ridge looked easy now, when seen from below:
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- The ridge to the summit of Marsco
The summit turned out to be narrow, with very steep slopes on either side. The view was probably the finest I've seen so far from any Skye hill:
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- Sgurr nan Gillean
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- The Pinnacle Ridge
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- Towards Loch Coruisk
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- The Cuillin ridge again
We retreated the same way we came, taking great care while descending on a wet, slippery grass slope. Despite the modest height, Marsco is a good fat-burning exercise
I loved the experience and I will certainly tackle more Skye hills. Of course, as soon as the spring comes again. Meow!
