Camp was established at the well appointed and free campsite in the east of the village. The process then began of un-packing the cars and organising.
Looking at the forecast and charts it seamed like the weather would break a bit over the next couple days and turn showery with a weakening frontal system passing over us. This would then be replaced by a strong Scandinavian high. A plan to tackle a couple of the classic Torridon ridges before heading over to Skye for an attempt on the Cuillin, once the high was in charge, was made. This also tied up nicely with Jonny, who was travelling up from the Lakes on Monday to join us.
The first ridge we'd look at was the Liathach, 5km of Torridon sandstone, with 1000m high gain and 4 Munros - quite a leg stretch for the first day of the holiday. The hardest technical section is referred to rather unimaginatively as "The Pinnacles" - our guide listed these as a grade 2 scramble. This lead to a conservative approach to gear selection. I'll cover the gear used in another blog post.
With bags packed and a small fire going (please keep any fires in the highlands well under control), a few drinks and a good nights sleep were enjoyed.
With the expected cloud cover and cold front pushing through we set off up the south western slopes of Mullach an Rathain. Just passed the campsite we left the road so we'd have a more enjoyable walk round to the ascent path. On this excursion we stumbled upon quite a range of boulders. Made from some of the grippiest rock I've seen these look like a fantastic area to while away an evening and it was obvious I'm not the only one to think so. I resolved to come back with a mat at some point and try some of the highball slabs that looked interesting. After this we traversed round to the point where the path crosses the deer fence and started the rather long and steep slog up. At about 600m we entered the cloud and the easy path broke up into a scree slope. On this I was very thankful for poles as the rock around there seams to form loose sand under the scree causing everything to become quite unstable. A lot of the time it felt like one step forward, two steps back. This slope does however have the advantage of leading straight to the first summit. Here we took shelter from the wind and donned layers just to the west of the main summit (with a large drop just below us).
The ridge from here to The Pinnacles was taken rather speedily and with little conversation as a stiff 30mph breeze ensured a heads down mentality. Luckily on reaching The Pinnacles this seamed to die down. In stead it was replaced by ominous looking lumps of mountain ahead. The cloud made it hard to tell the size of these or how complicated the scrambling would be. Time was now on our side though so a quick bite to eat and some gentle banter made sure we approached them with gusto. What ensued was some really fun scrambling on good rock that is grippy even while damp and who heartedly recommended.
After the scrambling sections the cloud started to part rewarding us with some nice views down the valley before a steep decent and stroll back along the road took us back to the campsite.
next up - gear used on Liathach and why...
