A Harsh Day on Stac Pollaidh

After completing 5 days of quite big outings into the Scottish mountains, I thought we’d end the week with a slightly different sort of day. A short day on an iconic hill that would involve more rope work, giving more of a climbing feel to the day. With this in mind, we headed north, through Ullapool, to Stac Pollaidh on a clear morning.

Enjoying a good scramble with the support of the rope
Enjoying a good scramble with the support of the rope

Stac Pollaidh can easily be accessed from the road with a relatively short walk in. Consequently, it tends to attract intrigued tourists and families as well. On our walk in, we passed a couple of sets of parents trying to encourage smaller children to keep going. We also came across a stag that was feed only 20m from the main path. Amazingly, he seemed unfazed by our presence, and even seemed to pose for a few photos.

Having ascended to  just short of the saddle at the eastern end of the mountain ridge, we paused for an early lunch break, before getting harnesses and helmets on. I have done this ridge before, but it was about 10 years ago, so had relatively little memory of it. However, it’s one of those where you generally have plenty of options to make it as easy or difficult as you wish, which is ideal for groups.

Not the kind of day I'd hoped for!
Not the kind of day I’d hoped for!

As we popped our heads up into the saddle, we soon realised that the best of the day was behind us. The wind had picked up and we could now see the clouds building, which had been hidden from view until now. As we progressed along the ridge, we took in a number of rock steps that required the rope to provide safety, and also offered an element of technical challenge is getting up – some managed them more elegantly than others!

The further we got, we worse the weather became. With the cloud closing in, constant drizzle and strong winds buffeting us one the exposed ridge, you could see the gritted teeth starting to show. However, the guys really stuck with it, and did really well to scale the last few sections, before we dropped off the ridge to the north and regained the path that took us round and back to the minibus.

The weather may have been a bit unkind to us, but it was still a great day out on the hill, and the boys seemed to appreciate a different kind of day out on the hill before heading back home tomorrow.

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