Isle of Skye - Day 11
I woke up this morning to sunlight streaming round George's curtains, and peered out of the window to see blue sky everywhere, and the tops of the mountains. I couldn't have asked for better birthday weather!
We got ready quite quickly (for us), as I was keen to get going before the sun disappeared. I opened my birthday cards (all two of them - thanks to the Parents and Claire - I'm sure I'll arrive home to a pile of them on the door mat), but decided to delay opening my presents until later, such was my enthusiasm for going up the mountain. Yes, it really was that nice a day.
We set off at about 10am. Today's walk was about 5 miles long, up Bla Bheinn, which is 929 metres high, and we had to climb all but 10 of those metres. The walk started off along a lovely little river with waterfalls and nice pools (lots of nice pools around here - if you didn't look where you're going you'd probably fall in one). I filled the antichrist bottle before we left the river and started off more steeply uphill.
We passed a couple who looked, quite frankly, in no fit state to be going up a mountain. They both looked exhausted, were having their lunch (at 300 metres at 10.30am), and, strangely had climbing helmets and alpine packs with them (alpine packs are narrow rucksacks - good for scrambling). We passed them, and had our lunch at about 600 metres once we were on the ridge.
After lunch, it didn't take us too long to reach the summit. There was a bit of scrambling, but nothing difficult, and we may even have been able to avoid it altogether by taking a long way round. When we reached the summit it was still a lovely clear day, and a huge view opened up before us of the Black Cuillins (the big scary ones), along with the rest of Skye, and what appeared to be most of the Scottish Highlands. There were mountains and sea as far as the eye could see.
We could also see the previous mountain we climbed, and very impressive it was too. The final climb to the summit looked every bit as steep as it was! The mountain in question is part of the range on the left of the photo, and the summit is the third pointy bit from the right (yes, the big pointy one!)
Bla Bheinn itself actually has twin summits. The one we had ascended was 1 metre higher than the other one. You can cross between the two, but according to the book, it is a bit awkward. It looked a bit tricky but not too bad, although we didn't bother as we were safe in the knowledge that we were already at the highest point.
We enjoyed a rather special ginger and dark chocolate chip muffin (a Co-op special), took loads of photos (I'll upload some of them when I get home to connectivity heaven), and finally decided we'd better head down when we started getting cold. We were a bit baffled about where the couple with helmets had got to, but decided they must have turned back.
We went down the same way we came up, and were rather shocked to spot the helmet couple doing some proper rock climbing up a part of the mountain that really did call for ropes and helmets. I wasn't aware they made ropes strong enough for one of them, but hats (or helmets) off to them anyway.
We got back to George at about 4pm, and drove round the loch a bit to enjoy our tea and scone with a good view of the mountain.
We both thought today's walk was a lot less challenging than the previous Munro, in fact it was a walk in the park in comparison. The views were a lot better though, and our legs and feet feel a lot happier about things today.
After my scone, whilst I sipped my tea, I finally got round to opening my birthday presents from Claire! And despite all the build up in my earlier blog, I am unwilling to tell you what my special present that was delivered by Fed Ex is. You probably think it's something rude now, but it isn't. It's just that it's given me an idea for a present for someone else and I don't want to tip them off. It is an excellent present, and I was still busy with it long after I'd finished my tea.
We've returned to the camp site at Sligachan tonight, and have had dinner in the pub again. Rather annoyingly, we'd both been looking forward to having the mussels all day, and they hadn't got any left! We managed to pick something else though, and are now mulling over puddings, and possibly a birthday Scotch!
Tomorrow is going to be our last day on Skye. If the weather is fine then we will do a low level walk at the foot of the Cuillins, along the river Sligachan. If it's reverted to being rainy and misty then we will be starting our journey home.
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Location:Isle of Skye
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