Summer was drawing to a rather dreich end. At the end of August, after a glorious summer spent running around the Scottish munros, I moved back home to a sleepy Trossachs village and spent the next month working twelve hour days at the local pub and cleaning eco-cabin toilets - not anyone's idea of fun, I can assure you. The days of running across rugged ridge lines and swimming in aquamarine lochs seemed like a lifetime ago. My good pal Oonagh is a medic student in her fifth year and after ten weeks of placement work, she had a week's holiday. I jumped at the chance to take a week to escape back to the Scottish highlands together.
Oonagh grew up in a very intrepid family, and her dad, upon hearing our plan to head to Skye to enjoy the good weather at the start of our week, suggested we head up the Dubh slabs from Loch Coruisk – 2.5km of fine Cuillin scrambling, with over 900 metres of ascent. Whilst I’ve climbed many a Scottish mountain, I don’t have much of a head for heights, and, after a couple of nerve-wracking gully scrambles with Oonagh this summer, I was a little apprehensive. However, she assured me by saying ‘Jamie and Oscar (our very competent mountaineer friends) ran them the other week! If they can run the slabs, you can definitely walk them’. This did settle my mind slightly, as did ‘Even my parents have done them – you’ll be fine.' For some reason this statement seemed to ease my mind, despite the fact that Oonagh’s parents are some of the gnarliest and most competent people I know.
And so I was convinced that I, with my minimal scrambling experience (I’d completed my first proper scramble earlier that summer, up Curved Ridge in Glencoe), would be grand on the Dubh Slabs. Friday finally came, and during my evening shift at the pub my mind was certainly elsewhere – far away from the sweaty kitchen and fussy diners, it was up in the wild highland mountains. I spilled an entire tray of drinks all over a table (and it’s diners) and messed up several orders, but it didn’t matter because the next day I would be roaming the wild glens of Scotland once more.
We set off early the next morning in the heavily-laden car. It was the last week of September, and whilst the sun was shining, the temperatures had plummeted to nearly freezing. Winter was well and truly here. At a lay-by just north of Crianlarich we pulled to a halt and found a good roadside bush to hide Oonagh’s sister’s climbing ropes in, to be collected the following day on her way North. Onwards we trundled, swinging a right at Tyndrum and weaving our way up past the dramatic slopes of Beinn Dorain, up to Rannoch moor where we marveled at the familiar sight of the Buachaille.
By the time we were approaching Glen Shiel we were starting to feel pretty ready for a stop to stretch our legs. Oonagh mentioned that some family friends owned a cottage in Cluanie – an old schoolhouse they had renovated in their free time. We were in luck – they were in, and the kettle had just boiled! A quick cup of coffee in the garden and a rant or two about the discriminatory nature of the current Covid-19 restrictions barring students from going to the pub, and we were back on the road. Within the hour we were soaring across the Skye bridge, then turning left in Broadford and wiggling down the single-track road towards Elgol.
The Kilmarie car park was rammed when we got there, but thankfully after a sketchy 3-point (ok, more like 8-point) turn, a campervan was just pulling out and we deftly nipped into its spot. Hunger suddenly hit us, and soon we were sitting on the ground in front of the car, with bags of food and camping equipment sprawled around us, slathering peanut butter onto bread using nature’s plate (the tarmac). A car that was trying to exit had to ask us to kindly move ourselves and our feast out of their way.
Bellies full of peanut butter, bread, cheese, and all sorts of other random snacks, rucksacks packed with everything we would need for a couple of days hiking and camping, and we were ready to set off. We started rambling up the track which would take us up and over into Camasunary Bay. Dark purple clouds were gathering in the North, and before we knew it we were being hailed on. We laughed, put our heads down and trundled on, claiming that we had gotten soft from the fine weather we’d had all summer.
The hail didn’t last too long, and by the time we crested the hill and started the descent into the bay, the sun was making an appearance again and drying off our damp clothes.
We went past the new MBA bothy, past a big old house which we couldn’t decide was inhabited or not (turns out it is… after we went and put our noses up against a window on our way out a few days later, only to see a dog start barking at us and the sound of footsteps approaching – we quickly scarpered in embarrassment), and over towards the old bothy, which was reclaimed as a private dwelling in 2016 by its owner. In front of the bothy was a sheltered patch of grass perfect for pitching the tent, and a wonderful little sheltered alcove where someone had kindly left some old chairs and a couple of cans of soup.
We quickly erected the tent, dumped our rucksacks, then headed up the hill at the Western end of the bay, Sgùrr Na Stri. First, we had to maneuver our way across the shallow but wide river, fighting to keep our feet dry as we hopped across the stepping stones. Then it was a steep, boggy scramble up until we hit some slimy rocks and I got my warm-up scramble in. At one point I grasped onto a piece of rock which crumbled under my grip, and I was reminded to always tap on the rocks before you commit to holding onto them, in case that very thing happened. Those words rung in my head for the rest of the walk, and the following days.
We got to the summit just as the sun was sinking below the black Cuillins, giving us a phenomenal view of the silhouetted ridge line. Dramatic, sweeping black peaks rose before us, ripping through the golden glow of the sunset. As the sun sank lower, we turned and started the descent. This proved trickier than the ascent, as is always the case. There were some sketchy down-climbs, some boot-scooting and some bog-sliding. But we made it back down in one piece, to the joyous view of our friend Kats strolling in our direction across the bay – she had driven up later on after finishing work.
We scampered back across the river and down to her, where we stared to cook dinner in our cosy alcove as the last of the golden sunlight faded away and the stars began to appear in the indigo sky. After an hour or so of chat, the darkness and full stomachs made us sleepy and we retired to our sleeping bags by barely eight o’clock. Eyelids too heavy even to read, we were soon soundly asleep, excited by thoughts of the day in the mountains ahead of us.
We woke fairly early by the natural light, scoffed down some porridge and coffee, and set off before nine. The sky was a clear blue, and there was a light breeze in the air. We trekked along the boggy path around the headland until we came to our first test of the day – the Bad Step. This isn’t a technically hard scramble however it certainly takes some steely nerves to face it. One has to climb along a half-foot-wide crack in a rock perhaps five meters in length, all the while trying to avoid looking down at the steep drop into the shallow seawater below. Whilst Oonagh bounded across it like a pothole in the road, Kats and I showed a little more hesitation. As we edged ourselves across, a boat came into the bay from Elgol and slowed as it passed us, its passengers clearly observing us with intrigue.
Legs slightly shaky, we all made it across the Bad Step and continued around the bay. The views were the perfect distraction from rock-related fears – the sea was a glittering turquoise, fringed with white sandy beaches in places, the Cuillins rising majestically above us, getting ever-closer.
As we reached Scavaig river we came across several groups of people who had clearly just been dropped off by the boat. Some looked comically unprepared for the boggy terrain, in their perfect white trainers and fur coats. It was a bizarre sight after the somewhat nerve-wracking walk we had just had to get to Loch Coruisk from Camasunary. As I was waiting to cross over the stepping stones at Scavaig river, I got chatting to an elderly woman who said she had seen us at the Bad Step, and that she remembered doing it in her youth: “It’s not too bad once you’re on it!” Hmm. I personally felt that it’s not too bad once you’re off it and safely back in the bog.
We skirted around the shore of Loch Coruisk, the sun beating down on us as we waded through some very deep bog. I had given up on attempting to keep my feet dry far earlier in the morning, and now plodding through thigh-deep bog felt strangely liberating. We neared the sloping shoulder of black rock which marks the starting point to the Dubh slabs, and headed up a very dank, very slimy gully to get to the start. This in itself proved fairly nerve-wracking for Kats and I, but the step which came after, an awkward sort of swinging of legs to get up onto the slabs was even more so.
I faffed for several minutes, trying to put faith in my grip and the stickiness of the gabbro rock. Oonagh gently encouraged from her perch above. My heart was racing – if I couldn’t manage this, could I manage any of it? What if I got up but then realised there was a part that I couldn’t do, but by then it would be too late as there was no easy exit point off the Slabs? I remembered Oonagh saying that our friends had run up these slabs. Surely I could manage it. By some unknown skill, I somehow inched my way up and onto the slab of rock above.
Kats was far more sensible than I, and decided that, instead of risking going up something potentially out with her capabilities, she would instead head up An Garbh Coire and meet us on the ridge, gauging it would take her a similar time to ascend the boulder field as it would us to navigate up the Slabs. We said our farewells, and then it was just me, Oonagh, and 2.5 km of sloping gabbro rock.
The first part of the Slabs actually went not too badly. I gradually began to trust the grip of my feet on the rock. As we got higher, the wind picked up as it funneled down the glen, throwing off my sense of balance. The hair streaming across my eyes certainly didn’t help in locating holds for my hands and feet, although perhaps it helped slightly in that it blurred my view downwards – ignorance is bliss.
We stopped for a lunch-time wrap behind a rock for shelter, and lazed in the autumn sunshine as we took in the views to the South-East: the rosy rock of Blàbheinn, the pale blue peaks of Knoydart and Glen Shiel stretching for miles upon miles, the glittering sea below us. I felt relaxed, thinking that the worst of the scrambling was over now – and I’d managed it! It would all be plain sailing from here. Ohhh how wrong I was.
Once you reach the top of the Dubh slabs, the summit of Sgùrr Dubh Beag, most people abseil 20 meters off the other side to continue along to the main Cuillin ridge at Sgùrr Dubh Mòr. However, both myself and Oonagh had read online that you could skirt around to the left about 100 meters below the top and avoid doing this abseil – which means also avoiding carrying the weight of a rope and harnesses with us. So, we had left the rope back in the tents, confident that we would find the right path to skirt around it. We got to the top of Sgùrr Dubh Beag, taking a few minutes once again to absorb the breathtaking panoramic views. We then backtracked, trying to find the way to the diversion on the left. We cut off too early and found ourselves descending rocks unsure of what exactly was below us. At one point I lost sight of Oonagh and was down-climbing with my heart in my throat, trying not to think about the seemingly enormous drop down into the boulder-strewn corrie below. Once back in view, Oonagh displayed patience as she instructed me where to place my feet and hands as I climbed down the rocks. By this point mild panic was setting in – was it meant to be this sketchy? We made it to a narrow grassy slope where we could skirt around the abseil and rejoin the ridge. We saw a few people just finishing up their abseil, and we waved hello as we passed, getting surprised looks in return.
If I’d been scared on that down-climb diversion, it was only going to get worse. As we scrambled along the ridge, I was really struggling with vertigo. The steep drops on either side were getting to my head, and I found myself clinging onto the rock for dear life, despite the fact that the scrambling was really pretty straight forward. Whilst Oonagh scampered ahead with ease, I was hesitating and deliberating my every move.
At one point we came to a part in the ridge which looked, to me, like proper climbing up vertical rock, different to the scrambling preceding this. In my tired and terrified state, I was certain that this would be out with my capabilities, and told Oonagh I would find an easier way up, thinking that a narrow stretch of grass might take me on an easier, lower diversion around and then rejoin the summit of Sgùrr Dubh Mòr. Oonagh, by this point, was probably getting quite fed up of my hesitation and reluctancy, so she headed up while I embarked on alternative grassy path. It wasn’t long before I realised that it probably wasn’t any easier this way either. I started to climb, my heart in my throat and the only thoughts circling my head were ‘The only way is up, if I can’t get up then I’m truly stuck here’. After ascending a couple of meters, an anchor point came into view that someone had clearly left behind. My heart starting to pound so hard I thought it would rip through my chest. What the hell was I doing up here without any ropes?! Above me was an overhang of rock, which I absolutely knew I had no capabilities of climbing. I climbed back down with the most care and deliberation I have ever given anything in my life.
Once back on the grassy ledge, I called to Oonagh, who was up on the summit above me. She directed me back to the rock where she had climbed up – and I found that it was actually doable. Far easier than what I had just attempted to climb. My stubborn attitude and lack of confidence had done nothing but waste time and put me in a far more dangerous position than if I had just carried on the usual route.
When I popped up onto the summit, I was surprised to see a few groups of guides and clients, all dressed in proper mountaineering clothes, wearing helmets and carrying ropes. Oonagh and I stuck out in our leggings, trainers and sports bras (it was pretty hot work scrambling under the sun) and gained quite a few skeptical glances.
My relief at reaching the summit was insurmountable. On either side of us the Cuillin ridge erupted, the mid-afternoon sun casting imposing shadows on the black rock. Loch Coir’ a’ Ghrunnda nestled in the corrie below, the deep turquoise pool framed by pale, exposed rocks quite unlike any other view I had ever experienced in Scotland. The relief flooded through me as we started to descend to the bealach, although it still felt like a long time before I would be able to look back and consider the scramble to be enjoyable – definitely fun of the type two variety.
Once down in the bealach and finding no sign of Kats, we presumed she must have turned back already – she had in fact reached the ridge just before us, and was making her way back down the corrie as we reached the top. Oonagh bounded away up towards Gars-bheinn, but I felt that my nerves and knees had had enough for the day and started the slow descent down the boulder field.
It struck me as I was descending just how silent it was – no nearby burns gushing, no voices, no birds singing. The constant chatter and calamity of sounds which usually provide a soundtrack to my day had ceased, and all that was left was the sound of my foot stepping on rock and my breath. My mind was, for once, empty as I concentrated on the next leap from boulder to boulder.
It was a long slog back down to Loch Coruisk, but I enjoyed every minute of it. Being alone in the mountains gives me time to let my thoughts flow, allowing me to notice which ones are coming to the fore of my mind and demanding my attention. I can dedicate my undivided mental energy to the issues that have been bothering me lately with a greater sense of perspective. My frustration at my perceived lack of direction in life, the many employment rejections I’d been receiving and my resentment of having to move back home all seemed to melt away as I took in the majestic mountainous scenes surrounding me. So what if I didn’t have a clue what I wanted to do just yet – I got to spend a week immersed in the hills, trying new things and scaring myself stupid. I’d say that was pretty damn lucky and privileged.
I returned to Camasunary Bay just as the sun was setting that evening, feeling mentally and physically exhausted but happy. My fingertips were red raw from gripping onto the gabbro all day and my clothes were damp and stinking of a mixture of sweat and bog, but nothing could dampen the elation I felt at having made it onto the Cuillin ridge. It wasn’t until Oonagh and I were snug in our sleeping bags about to succumb to sleep when she casually mentioned, “Oh yeah, Jamie and Oscar didn’t actually run the Slabs, they went up a different way so that they could run the whole ridge start to finish.” Everyone needs a pal who will trick them into doing stuff that scares the living daylights out of them, but which they are perfectly capable of if they give themselves a chance.
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