A couple of pictures added courtesy of Chris, if you look closely at the top one you can just make out Graham in on his bike.

Added after emerging at Glen Shiel. Will try again if my waterlogged brain can remember....

So...to Skye. The most technical mountains and also the most fiddly to fit in, due to a) the limited value of a rope if you haven't managed to find someone to be on the other end of it, and b) the need to cycle to it from somewhere else. In the end it took rather longer than planned and was distinctly inelegant at times, but ultimately successful, thanks to Bob, Chris and Gill for help in chronological order. I had arranged to meet up with Bob for a couple of days - as it turned out Chris was also planning to be on Skye, which gave some flexibility - very fortunately as it turned out!

For those that don't know Skye there are tweleve munros. Blaven in isolated to the east, and was climbed with Chris on the Saturday on a spendid day - mists hovering about the summit to just about form a cloud inversion, albeit with only the top few feet of the peaks visible. Then cycled on to Sligachan. This lies (with pub and campsite) at the northern end of the main Cuillin ridge (which contains all the other eleven). The road continues round the western side of the Cuillin chain, to finish at Glen Brittle (youth hostel, campsite) at the southern end. On the eastern side there are lots of bogs and no roads.

The plan was to walk in down the eastern side with Bob to camp at the south end before elegantly traversing the whole ridge over two days. Chris (who had gone to the outer hebrides to look around for a couple of days) would then be around to help do any we had to miss out. However, things did not quite go to plan. We set off Sunday evening and got to Loch Coruisk, after a boggy (and increasingly dark) approach. The following morning dawned very wet and lowish cloud revealed fresh snow on the ridge, but after a late (1pm!) start we got up to the ridge and managed to climb the two southernmost peaks, Sgurr nan Each and Sgurr Dubh Mor (I haven't got the map here - spelling will be arbitrary!). Unfortunately this part had to be cut short - Bob had to dash back due to problems at home. We therefore set off down to Glen Brittle, having left a message on Chris's mobile to ask for a lift. To round things off I managed to fall over on the way down, benind a walking pole, which then snapped while trying to get it back in shape. It did ok for the next few days in its reduced state however.

9pm ish - Glen Brittle, and no sign of Chris...had he got our message...the prospect of walking round to Sligachan to Bob's car did not look appealing at this point. We set off walking towards the youth hostel, our most likely destination for the night, and met Chris round the first corner! So a lift back to Sligachan and Bob's car, in which he departed.

This was now therefore a time out, being in a car - having dragged Chris from the bar it was probably unrealistic to drag him straight back to Glen Brittle! This did however raise an interesting point on how time outs called. If I had walked out to acompany Bob to Sligachan then I could have ended up deciding I was on a time out at either location. The better point to time out would be Glen Brittle as I would be planning to get a lift back with Chris and carry on from there. However, say Chris's car had broken down in Sligachan then I could have walked up some of the peaks from there. Except that if I had already decided at Glen Brittle that I was on a time out (or not clearly defined where it started) then this would be cheating - although the walk would still be continuous I would be taking advantage of knowledge of subsequent events to retrospectively make decisions, thus gaining an unfair advantage (not usually being capable of quantum behaviour). In the event this didn't arise, but highlighed that walking and off duty travel must be absolutely defined by a fixed point...can't be too careful with space time discontinuities!

Anyway, in practice no walking was done the following day, it being absolutely and utterly foul. We went to the Talisker distillery, before checking in at Glen Brittle YH, after which Chris gave me a lift 1 mile further on to the point at which he picked me and Bob up the previous evening, and from where I ensured continuity by walking back to the youth hostel.

The following day the weather was a bit better, with heavy rain showers and 80 mph wind gusts. It was blatantly obvious that we wouldn't get up anything, so we set off to see if we could climb Mhadaidh and Gredaidh (peak of the waling and gnashing of teeth apparently) by the easier routes. (I must put in a huge thank you to chris for his mindless optimistic faith here!). Going up the corrie we were almost blown off our feet but we carried on a bit further to see. Going up to An Dorus (the col between the peaks) there was lots of steep snow and heavy rain and it was all looking very grim...BUT on the ridge was totally still! Absolutely no wind whatsoever. Furthermore, the snow was deep enough to cover the hardest part of both scrambles (i.e. getting out of the steep and deeply cut gap) - we walked up and down the crux of one before realising it was (or rather wasn't) there. The rock was slippery and we got the rope out a couple of times, but all went smoothly to both summits and back. A very satisfying day in characterising the requirement for the whole trip - summits obtained with comparatively little effort, against the odds, by the power of mindless optimism.

Having done the central section of the ridge this left four peaks in the south adjacent to Glen Brittle, after which a walk back to Sligachan would be required to do the final three peaks at the northern end of the ridge. Thursday the weather forecast was better (only 70mph gusts forecast...) so we decided on a round of all four remaining peaks in the southern section - Alastair, Mhic Choinnich, The Inaccessable Pinnacle and Bannachdich.

The first two went fine, with snow again helping on the scree gully up Alastair. however, as we went round to the Inaccessible Pinnacle the weather rapidly worsened. Again for those not familiar with Skye (and until I can upload some pictures) the In Pin is an impressive peak, generally taken to be the hardest in the UK, requiring technical climbing to get up it by the easiest route. It is in effect a long fin of rock which sits on a huge inclined slab that forms the main mountain side. The downhill, longer, ridge is the easiest way up and about 150' long. This takes you to the top of the pinnacle, which is about 8m higher than what would otherwise be the summit of the mountain. A 60' abseil then takes you down the short side. The climbing is easy (graded moderate) but exposed - originally described as having an overhanging and infinite drop onone side...and an even longer and steeper drop on the other.

There was a queue of five when we got there, but 5 minutes later they had all disappeared. This unfortunately was due to the increasingly heavy rain and high winds, making the climb look distinctly unenticing. Chris had obviously been reading Tom Patey ("I wouldn't want to deprive you of the lead on your big trip..." or words to that effect) and I felt decidedly reluctant to do it. We sat under the group shelter for 2 hours, wailing and gnashing teeth, but unfortunately today the weather just got worse. However, we did carry on over Bannachdich to finish a full day out.

Friday - the forecast was good, so it was back up to the In Pin - again thanks to Chris for his patience in going back to climb the top 8m of the mountain in effect! The cloud rose as we did and in the end we were treated to broken spectres from the summit, with sun shining down onto the cloud below us in corrie laggan. I led the ridge and decided it was the right decision the previous day - the climbing is easy but at the crux the ridge steepens, forcing you round above the longer and steeper drop, and it was still breezy even on a nice day - definitely much happier after I'd found a good wire placement just below this.

Chris was going home the next day, but fortunately this was a weekend that Gill was coming across, so had arranged to meet her at Sligachan. So 4pm I set off to walk across the track to get back to the bar. Quite satisfying by now legs starting to get fitter, so took in a detour to Bruach na Frith on the way, the least technical of the three remaining peaks and directly above the pass between Glen Brittle and Sligachan.

Two munros left - Sgurr nan Gillean and am Bhasteir. Would they be done before I ran out of climbing partners to dispose of or intermittently ok weather?? Saturday and the answer was yes - a long day but traversed both. Both are easier than the In Pin, but climbing and rope still required. Am Bhastier used to be a straightforward scramble up the ridge, but a lump fell off a few years ago leaving a bad step to get down into a small gap. Although only 8' high it was exposed, so we abseiled in leaving the rope to ensure we could get back. The gendarme ridge (the rock pinnacle it is named after has fallen off- the guidebook diagram marks 'missing gendarme' just to confuse you...?) is agian moderate rock climbing, mostly done in fine alpine style moving together on the rope. This felt appropriate, as although the ridge was snow free the whole of corrie a Bhastier was snow filled, with the combination of snow fileds rock pinncales and sunshine feeling distinctly alpine. Descent form the sunnit is easier but still exposed, and then a steep jarring descent to collapse back at the tent.

Which just left a rest day for for a rainy Sunday, give or take a quick cycle back to Broadford as the starting point for non-existant ferries.