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There has been quite a few “firsts” reported recently and a few of Skye too, so here is my offering – a first Skye munro.
Our original plan had been to do the Inn Pinn but as first one guide and then a second pulled out; we decided to head over and do Bla Bheinn instead.
We stayed at the Sligachan hotel on the Friday night and kept our fingers crossed that the good weather would hold. Saturday dawned bright and sunny and after a gargantuan breakfast we set off with our expensive but meagre packed lunch from the hotel. One round of sandwiches, a chocolate biscuit and a packet of crisps wasn’t going to keep us going for long. To add insult to injury the vegetarian packed lunch contained ham crisps!
As Munrotop had climbed Bla Bheinn before by the usual route we opted to climb via the south ridge. It meant a long walk in but as the weather was perfect we knew we would get stunning views of the Cuillin ridge most of the way.
The path from the small car park at Kilmarie was excellent and it wasn’t long before Bla Bheinn came into view.
At Am Mam the path became a bit boggier and while Munrotop stopped to don his gaiters, I took some photos of the ridge.
Just before Camusunary a smaller path branches off towards the North. After easily crossing the Abhainn nan Leac, we headed up a steep grassy slope towards the south ridge where we came across a little adder sunbathing on the path.
I really enjoyed the next section which was very rocky and even gave a little bit of easy scrambling. There are lots of paths heading in all directions so scrambling could be avoided if necessary.
Once we had gained the south top, I was a little daunted to see how far away the true summit appeared and how far the drop between the tops seemed. However an awkward scramble down a steep stone gully soon got us back onto the path again. We didn’t see the easier path just above the gully until we returned!
On reaching the top at around 2.15pm we noticed that the clouds were beginning to roll in over the Cuillin and the Inn Pinn was shrouded in a dark haze. I still felt a little sad that I hadn’t been able to experience it on this occasion. Lunch was hastily consumed and after the obligatory summit snaps, we retraced our route off the summit.
Instead of returning all the way down the ridge we headed SE down what turned out to be a nasty scree slope (avoid this if you can) towards Slat Bheinn, then headed south to pick up the Kilmarie path. The last bit before reaching the path was a bit of a bog trot over my least favourite terrain of tussocky grass.
After a quick visit to the chippy in Broadford, we were off to the Glenbrittle youth hostel for the night. We awoke on Sunday to another glorious day and drove down to the campsite to feast our eyes on the ridge before setting off reluctantly for home, promising that we would be back as soon as possible
