Not a very good attempt with a guide on the Cuillin. We had booked a 5 day course through Skye mountain
guides and met Jonah Jones on 5/8/19 to start the Cuillin ridge. The first day went to plan and completed the 3 Munros
Sgurr nan Gillean, Am Basteir, and Bruach na Frithe. The walk with Jonah was fantastic and we much appreciated his knowledge and expertise in that area. We walked down so far and let him go off on his own due to him having car problems.
We met in the Sligachan hotel for a drink to round off the day. The weather for Tues was exceptional and Jonah suggested that we had paid for Blaven and with his car issues we could do without him ! . Probably would have been better doing the middle 3 but we took his words and completed Blaven.
On Wed we received a early call from him saying " sorry guys but thunderstorms and lightening coming " , we checked all available weather sites online and no such weather due that day. We were a little off put so we set out and completed the southern 2 Munros on the Cuillin , Sgurr Dubh Mor and Sgurr nan Eag. Which we enjoyed even though a tough slog.
We waited for his text after leaving Glen Brittle and it came stating that Thurs was a great forecast and we were set to do the
In Pinn and Sgurr Mhic Choinnich . Were happy with that and replied telling him we had completed the southern 2 on our own and meet at the starting point as arranged. He replied again saying "oh" I was out on a rescue ? We checked online and no rescues that day so sounding odd to us.
We checked the weather and as told it was going to be sunny but Friday was going to be a complete washout with over 100mm of rain coming our way. We knew then that the walk on Thurs was going to be our last with Jonah.
We turned up at the memorial hut in Glen Brittle as told to only to be met by a friend of Jonah's " telling us he was badly and on the loo all night ". But he will be in touch with you to explain . We handed over the climbing apparatus and he gave us our money back . Which was very honourable yet didn't really please us because only 1 day out of 5 with our guide was not what we planned.
We were stuck then with a dilemma , do we try the middle 3 without helmets or guide or do we pack up in Portree in good
weather and drive 11 hours back to Scarborough ? We chose to go because of the bad feelings left by Jonah and also because of the pending weather.
We have tried to contact Jonah about the reasons etc in e-mails , texts but he has not had the decency to contact us regarding the whole episode. The guide is a very good person in this field of mountains and would not tell anyone not to use him but his manners are appalling and it leaves us saddened after driving 1500 miles to complete or try to complete the ridge. Yes the weather would have cut us a bit but we could have done the middle 3 and the famous In Pinn and probably come back another time perhaps to complete.
Thanks Jonah Jones of Skye Mountain Guides for the 1 days climbs .