A Tactical Retreat from the Forcan Ridge
I’d been told that there wasn’t much snow left on the South Shiel ridge so Rick and I devised a vague plan of heading up the Forcan Ridge to the Saddle and then heading east along the South Shiel ridge until we got tired, we’d then head off down one the smaller ridges back to civilisation.
We only made it about halfway along the Forcan Ridge – we were in our running gear, no axes or crampons – when we decided we’d better back track before we got into difficulty. We knew we could down climb everything we’d covered so far but we had arrived at a steep icy section that didn’t look fun to reverse and we knew from previous experience that there is a hairy traverse later on where crampons would be very useful. We decided today wasn’t our day to appear on Channel 5’s Highland Emergency, besides, Rick had to be back for 5pm so there wasn’t time to hang around for a helicopter rescue.
We back-tracked to the bealach and then headed up to Sgurr na Sgine, the next Munro to the east, and then continued to the next hill, Sgurr a’ Bhac Chaolais, at least we would have done if Rick hadn’t talked me into traversing round it on a ledge he’d spotted from the previous summit. We traversed halfway round but ended up with no option but to ascend to the summit anyway, still we got to see a side of the mountain most people don’t …the steep north side!
We continued up to the next Munro, Creag nan Damh, where we fueled up on homemade coconut ice (thanks to Rick’s good lady wife) before backtracking west for 2 km and heading down the good path from Bealach Duibh Leac for a steady (if a little icy) 4km back to the car.
Nice to be out on the hills again after what feels like a very long time, especially on a great blue sky day like today. I could get used to having a grandma around to help look after things – thanks Mum!
–Matt
