Cuillin Ridge, Scotland - May 2015 - Trip Report

Edited by Gareth Wignall (G) of GnBri Photography

An excuse I often hear as to why beer fuelled ideas for adventures never reach fruition when sober, is time. Our jobs get in the way, we have chores and then it’s a choice of whether you have the energy to socialise or just want to recuperate. My excursion to the Cuillin Ridge is an excellent example of how (with a little motivation!) you can have an alpine style adventure from the UK in just a weekend!

Located on the Isle of Skye on the north-west coast of Scotland, the Cuillin is the remnants of an extinct super-volcano leaving an impressive cirque ridge as tombstone to its past. It is reputed for being the only “alpine style” route in the UK, due to its 12kms of jagged peaks and lack of easy escape routes. And as I soon found out for myself, the black igneous gabbro rock is fantastically grippy and riddled with jugs!

So when I wrote “with a little motivation”, what I meant was that this entailed a flight from London to Glasgow after work on a Friday, followed by a long drive. I was accompanied by Tarn Stroud, an accomplished caver but untested mountaineer, and met in Glasgow the usual suspect to share my misery, Ray Talbot. Ray had unwisely drank several coffees to keep functional for the long day, but after I drove the rented car over five hours to the north-west coast of Scotland, it was apparent to him that he would not sleep that night at our road side bivvy.

Not even Ray’s grumbles in the morning however, could ruin the splendour of our vista. Having driven through the black of night, it was awe inspiring to wake and see that this had veiled the snow topped mountains all around. The stark and quickly realised contrast between previous morning’s grey of the city and waking up in the green of the Scottish wilds was captivating, and to this day that initial glimpse of Skye remains one of my favourite ever wake-up views.

After crossing the Skye bridge and a supply run at a convenience shop, we met the final member of our team; someone who was a big influence for my early outdoors adventuring and who I had not seen in a few years. Gareth “G” Wignall is a previous President of the University of Kent Caving Club, but also an ambitious mountaineer. Climbing in the alps for him was just a prelude to greater things, such as summiting North Americas highest mountain, Denali (6,144m). He and his wife moved to Scotland to be closer to the rocks and they are both keen dry toolers (climbing with ice axes on bare rock).

On the east side of the island, by the Sligachan Hotel, we assessed the forecasts together between peering at the sky to make sure what we were reading was matching what we were seeing. We had a dry window right now, but with a storm predicted that night which should lighten the following morning. Right then was our best chance at overcoming the hardest parts. We took the opportunity and made a sortie around the island to the south side. G’s wife, Bri, would be staying overnight in one of the cars to collect us from our finishing point in the north, whilst I’d leave the rental to the south just in case we had to bail early.

We began our endeavour by touching the sea waves of Loch Brittle that were so gentle they could hardly be described as lapping. We took advantage of this calm and made the three hour approach through undulating moorland that bore isolated boulders that looked like they were carefully placed rather than occurring naturally. The rock proper was a series of swart bedding planes, with a stream cascading down these mini plateaus near to the main stomping route. The source of this water was a tarn (a mountain lake and namesake of one of our team). As we ascended towards the ridge we entered the snow line, but with only a sprinkling underfoot here it was not enough to require crampons.  We harnessed up at the tarn in case it would be inconvenient to do so when needed later and scrambled on to the ridge.

By the time we reached the ridge proper we were coming to terms with our first problem. Ray’s sleep deprived condition was making the once Royal Marine fit mountaineer dawdle behind. We probably were on the ridge for only an hour when he made the call to personally abandon the attempt. He felt that his slowing the team down would catch us out in the storm before we could get to camp, and having being a Mountain Warden in the Alps he was comfortable escaping solo. Despite his condition, Ray also volunteered to carry down an extra rope (we’d now move as a three) and the extra protection to give us lighter bags and the best chance of success. We intermittently watched his knackered self make a cumbersome but focused descent as we continued on (more on what happened to Ray later!).

For over an hour, us three remaining made easy progress. Tarn and I had short roped, solely for my peace of mind as she has advance common sense from being a cave leader. We even had sun on that crisp day, as we descended into TD Gap. This feature is essentially a saddle between two peaks that has steep sides, and is the hardest pitch of the ridge. The greasy chimney is graded only at Very Difficult by the SMC, but HS by plenty of others. As we were using mountain boots rather than climbing shoes, it becomes very difficult. There was however a pair in front of us on the climb, making everyone anxious that such a delay meant that the storm could catch up with us, but, given we had no choice but to wait, we took the time to cook our dinner.

G led the climb and I was expecting him to flash up based on his past performance, but with numb fingers and icy cracks, he unexpectedly struggled. He had not been out in the hills as much and his crag capability had waned. It was almost concerning that my hero over-protected the route, for he knew he was not at his peak ability which made him concerned of falling. By the point G had finally set up the belay position, his lead had taken an hour and it was dark. I had now been in TD Gap for four hours after waiting for the first pair. Tarn shot up and two of the bags were hauled up with difficulty so I decided to climb with the Tarn’s bag as it was heaviest. Being the daughter of the renowned polar adventurer, Mike Stroud, a lot of her equipment was her fathers and was oversized due to either age or being meant for more severe conditions. So big was her bag in fact, that the top of it prevented me from being able to look up. Under the illumination of my head torch I ascended that “very difficult” climb, little able to properly plan my route for the restriction the bag imposed on me.

At the top I continued on to lead a short easier second pitch and we departed with haste to make up time. Night had now fully closed in and the wind and snow was picking up. After ninety minutes we came to a ledge just big enough for us. G demonstrated his Denali-grade ability by building a superb snow wall that we would use like a nest, to help shield us from the increasing storm. And what a storm it turned out to be! The wind torrented atop our nest as we tried to think of warm thoughts in our individual bivvy bags. So ferocious were the gales that G, concerned about being blown off in his sleep, used an ice axe to secure his bivvy bag to the ground.

The morning was only apparent by the black outside shifting to grey, announcing the end of what was (and still is!) the worst bivvy I’ve ever spent. We communicated to one another by shouting above the howling winds. Maybe the gales would dissipate shortly? What was certain was that we could not continue to do a ridge in such conditions. For this eventuality I had marked on my map some planned escape routes, and at this point found, as it turns out, that OS maps are extremely hard to unfurl from within a bivvy! Eventually relocating where we were, it transpired that we had actually camped on top of such an escape route just by Sgurr MhicChoinnich. I shouted this bit of luck and we waited for a lull to begin the steep descent.

One or two hours later there still had not been a break, and we were still huddled in our bivvy bags. Escaping from mountain is by its nature a dangerous affair. You often end up doing it in bad weather, or with some other predicament (such as injury) dogging you. You have to manage risks and make careful judgements, being very aware that you’re firmly inside the ‘incidence funnel’ (the point where a situation can rapidly deteriorate). Fortunately we orchestrated this retreat as well as the British did from Gallipoli, leaving nothing and no one behind! Back down on safe ground we continued the trek back down to where my car and Ray should be. When we arrived however, both the car and Ray were missing. The reassurance that Ray must have made it back was shadowed that we would now have to walk 15km around the island to where Bri would be waiting at the intended extraction point.

After only two kilometres of walking, Ray turned up by the Glen Brittle hut, having been driving around the island looking for us. When he escaped before the night, he could view from the lower altitude the ridge smothered in cloud and battered by snow, so was convinced that we would not be able to complete the trip. He did not exactly have a great time either. In his exhaustion he struggled to retrace the obvious and well-trodden scramble route down and had found himself performing a series of abseils instead. In the boulder strewn moorland, his delirium made him paranoid that someone was following him and hiding behind the rocks. Ignoring his phantoms he eventually made it to the car park after several hours, tried to get into the wrong car and now jokes that he nearly cried when he realised the correct car was twenty meters further on.

There are a lot of lessons I learnt from this attempt but whereas someone might read the multiple failures and determine that they wouldn’t have made the attempt, I’d urge them to reconsider. Adventure is about being willing to fail. We experienced most of the adversities that could have befallen us without there being a real crisis, and they were all within our ability and manageable. We would not have gone up in that weather but as we had that small window, we would rather go for it and constantly assess the situation like we did, rather than not try at all. Now, I have first-hand knowledge of the route so who knows, I might even complete it next time!