The Isle of Skye - Rock Climbing Trip - 2008
Clients: Simon & Paul

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Monday: Cioch Direct, Slab Corner, Trophy Crack & Integrity. Regular readers of this BLOG will recognise Simon and Paul who are regular clients and friends. We have all headed up to Skye this week to do as much climbing as the weather allows and some mountaineering if it gets wet.
Today the weather has been fantastic with bright blue skies, sunshine all day and enough of a breeze to keep the midges at bay.
We headed up towards the Cioch, scene of the famous sword fight in the film Highlander, and climbed Cioch Direct, 150 m Severe. We enjoyed lunch on the Cioch itself and then climbed Tropy Crack, E1, 5b, 4b and then Integrity, Mild Very Severe.
Ice creams were enjoyed back at the beach at Glenbrittle!

Tuesday: It has been another gorgeous day here on Skye, like May always used to be. I have been coming to Skye every year since a teenager and it never disappoints. The combination of lochs, sea and mountains together with perfect gabro rock (so grippy it wears your fingers out rapidly) means that any trip here feels special. Today we headed back up to Sron na Ciche. This crag is divided into 3 parts, The East Buttress, Cioch Buttress and Western Buttress. Whilst we were on the Cioch yesterday in the shade we looked enviously on at people climbing Eastern Buttress in the sunshine so today that’s where we went. We had our eyes on Shangri-La a classic VS but we were beaten to it so climbed Jack of Diamonds instead. This is a 100m Hard Severe that leads to the top pitches of Direct Route (Mild Severe). This gave us about 7 pitches of climbing in all and took us to the top of Sron na Ciche.

Wednesday: We headed over to Elgol today to do some sea cliff climbing. A short walk along the top of the cliffs provided us with some beautiful views of the Cuillin and the smaller islands of Eigg and Rum out to sea. We abseiled down our first route, accompanied by a few midges who were sheltering from the Easterly wind. Jamie Jampot (VS 4c) was dispatched pretty quickly to escape the blighters. We then scrambled down the side of the cliffs and did a fun sea level traverse to the foot of Fertility Right (Severe) which Simon lead in good style. By now the midges were too much so after a bite to eat we headed to the Schoolhouse Buttress and climbed Schoolhouse Rock (VS 4c) as it started to rain. We then escaped the rain in the café for tea and scones!

Thursday: We had an overcast and slightly damp start to the day today but it has brightened up nicely as the day has gone on. We decided to do Pinnacle Ridge which is a great mountain route described by the guidebook as one of the finest rock courses in Britain (whatever a rock course is!). There we a couple of other guided parties doing the same thing and the clouds swirled around us atmospherically giving the impression of voices in the mist. The route includes a good abseil off the 3rd pinnacle as shown in the photo and we enjoyed a dip in the mountain pools to cool off at the end of the day.

Friday: South Stack - Isle of Skye. We fancied a bit of an adventure today so decided to climb the sea stack that is pictured on the back of the guidebook for Skye. South Stack is situated off the very North tip of Skye at Rubha Hunish. We climbed the route Willie Hunish (VS) and used two tyrolean traverses to get to the base of the route without Simon and Paul getting wet - of course I had to swim the ropes across. A beautiful day to end a cracking week.

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