Friday, July 16

Wet week on Skye

The Cuillin ridge.

With some of the north west of Britain suffering drought, other areas basking in the mid 20's, I chose the part of the west coast of Scotland where it never seems to stop raining.
I started my summer holidays off with a stop in Poolewe, where I hoped to climb a hill called An Teallach, the weather report was for 100 mph winds on mountain tops, even keep on the lower slopes it was hard sometimes keeping my feet. In the end I had to contend with a couple of pints of ale named after said hill. I maybe should have known as I had a puncture on the way there, foreboding.

I took the coastal road south to Applecross, a mecca for some people, mostly motor bikers for the Alpine pass approach to it, or exit as it was for me. I stopped for a couple of night and I did see a least one sunny half days here.

Then onto Skye, 3 nights at Glen Brittle, site is a bit basic but I do love it there. Again waited almost a year to come and climb the Cuillin ridge and again the weather beat me back. I expect doing this solo would have been a little foolhardy given the poor visibility. I did spot another route up, in fact it would have been my decent, but it looked better doing it that way round. again I got half way up and was able to do a bit of a recon, next year or maybe even autumn. 
After that Loch Gershornish, a great cc&cclub site with new and improved facilities. I did a lot of driving around, small walks, a few geocaches. This was all to culminate in a walk along The Quiraing, again the weather was atrocious, I had only done about 1/4 of my intended walk, I got as far as The Prisoner, then turned back soaked, not quite ti the skin but I would have been by the halfway. Besides all that I could hardly see a thing, the odd dark shape loomed out at me now and again, but I was missing most of what the place had to offer.

Off somewhere else in the coming weeks, surely the weather must be better.