The Great Outdoors – August 2019

photographs, and was probably the first
Scottish hillwalking guide to have annotated
photo-diagrams with route lines on them.
However, all the photographs in The
Scottish Peaks were black and white – and,
judging by clothing styles, many dated from
the 1940s and 50s. Poucher’s route text
was updated by myself and Kevin Howett
in 1998, but with no change to the photo
content. The most recent photo coverage of
the Cuillin was Gordon Stainforth’s majestic
2002 opus The Cuillin. It included some
stunning portraits of the peaks, but wasn’t
primarily intended as a guidebook – there’s
a relative lack of people in the photographs.
Guidebooks are as much about people in the
landscape as the landscape itself.
The Cuillin is Britain’s greatest
mountain massif. Add a few snow slopes
and glaciers and, but for the air’s higher
oxygen content, you could be in the Alps.
It was time to give it the photo-coverage it
deserved, and hopefully through the 215
photographs and 120 photo-diagrams in
my new book I have managed to capture
the awe-inspiring challenge and excitement
of tackling these routes.
While an end-to-end traverse of the
25km Cuillin Ridge attracts many suitors,
the vast majority of people on the crest
aren’t attempting the whole thing – they
are making day climbs of one or more of
the 11 Munros and 9 Tops on the ridge,
not forgetting Blabheinn, the single Munro
in the Cuillin Outliers.

These Munros offer some of the finest

mountain circuits we have. Routes like the

Round of Coire a’ Ghreadaidh (three or four

Munros) or Round of Coire Lagan (three

Munros) are Munro rounds par excellence.

Very little compares to them anywhere in the

UK, certainly anywhere outside Scotland.

Yes, you need to scramble and have a head

for heights; but that is the nature of most,

although not all, the routes in the Cuillin.

One issue I faced from the very start was

getting the right mix for the book’s content –

balancing the Cuillin Ridge, Cuillin Munros

and Tops, and all the other Cuillin peaks

and corrie rounds, with the outlying gabbro,

granite, basalt and sandstone summits. All

had to be included, but the Cuillin risked

overshadowing everything else. I needn’t

have worried. It was soon clear that while the

Cuillin is Skye, Skye isn’t just the Cuillin and

nor is Skye merely the Munros.

The island isn’t renowned for its settled

weather, and the Cuillin can attract its own

cloud cap while surrounding summits are

mostly clear. The best of these are worthwhile

objectives in their own right, and can be a

day saver when the weather is poor in the big

hills and cabin fever is setting in.

Skye has two Corbetts (peaks between

762m/2500ft and 914m/2999ft with a drop of

at least 152.4m/500ft), nine Grahams (peaks

between 609m/2000ft and 762m/2500ft with

a drop of at least 152m/500ft), 33 sub-2000ft

Marilyns (peaks with a prominence of above

150m/492ft) and lots more worthwhile small

peaks. With the sea in all directions, and the

high granite and gabbro hills dominating

the landscape, few summits in Skye are

disappointing viewpoints.

The routes selected on the facing page

are neither the hardest nor the easiest, but

hopefully give a flavour of what Skye can

offer. Two are from the Cuillin, but the

other is an unjustly neglected peak from the

Eastern Red Hills above Loch Slapin. But

selecting three routes from a hundred or so

in the book is highly subjective. Everyone

will have their own favourites.

[previous spread] Garbh-bheinn, Clach Glas and Blabheinn from Marsco

[above] The line of the North-west Ridge of Sgurr MhicChoinnich

BUY THE BOOK

The Cuillin & Other

Skye Mountains

by Tom Prentice

is out now, and

available from Mica

Publishing (£25.00):

micapublishing.com

SKYE

56 The Great Outdoors August 2019