Skye Ridge Traverse

Early morning abseiling of Am Bastier

Stunning sunrise

Abseiling off the Inn Pinn

Great conditions

Getting late, one more munro to do

The Dream Team - Dunc, Kenny, Me, Donald.  Happy on our last summit!

"The traverse of the Cuillin Ridge of Skye is the finest mountaineering adventure on the British Isles"
Eye's were heavy at 12.50am when the alarms went off but we all sprung into action with the excitement of what the day was to hold.  We wanted to complete the ridge in one day, summiting all the Munro's in a continuous push.  We travelled fast and light.  One axe each, one thin 50m rope between two, 4 wires, 3 extenders and 3 slings per pair.  A Jetboil between 2 with food and a duvet jacket each.  Conditions were perfect!  The whole ridge was covered with accommodating neve, sometime the snow pack had a crusty unforgiving layer but generally excellent.  This allowed us to make swift progress throughout.  We were so lucky to have nobody ahead of us so we were making fresh tracks all the way along to the end, meaning we had to do all the route finding which is half the battle.  We saw some head torches in the distance behind us who will have been lucky enough to follow our tracks.  A lot of the time consuming sections we cover in summer condition we easy and fast thanks to the good layer of snow.  I have wanted to do this traverse in winter for years and to being able to complete it in 12 hours is very satisfying and with the great company of Kenny, Donald and Dunc made it so much fun.  The weather was perfect, nice clear skies throughout the hours of darkness and very clear day through day light hours.  We finished the last Munro in daylight and only needed our head torch for the walk out.  We all had a massive dinner in the Old Inn in Carbost before driving back to Fort William.  Probably going to take a day off now! :)

More photos on Facebook HERE