black combe runners newsie january 2016 note from the ed 2015 has been a prey amazing year for the club and this edion of the newsie only skims the surface of those triumphs… There have been so many impressive personal achievements that it’s almost impossible to pick out the highlights, although I think Ian’s 51 year expedion to complete the Wainwrights is definitely worthy of a menon! Congratulaons also to Lou Lyness on her performances in 2015 (we have a World Champ in our ranks!) - a very deserving winner of the club’s Achievement of the Year award. As you know, Tim and I have been off on our Aussie adventures recently. We stuck to a rigid training regime, managing less than 10 runs in 2 months (measly effort!). My favourite oung was to the summit of Kahlpahlim Rock (1,236m) - aVer sweang it out to the top, we were treated to brilliant views followed by endless, sweeping descents through the forest (and thankfully no snakes on the trails!). Now we’re back at the ranch and glad to see that the rain has given way to snow. Let’s hope the fells stay white for a lile longer… Wishing you all the best for your own challenges this year, beth running the Cuillin Ridge Dave Sco-Maxwell The end-end traverse of the Cuillin So this is the poed story of my Cuillin Ridge ‘run’. First thing to get straight is that no actual running was Ridge on the Isle of Skye is reckoned involved. This dream was quickly sha.ered by to be the best long mountaineering weighing the amount of kit we needed – 3L of water each, a 40m climbing rope (no soloing for us!), food, expedion of its type in the UK. clothing, a small amount of climbing gear... this was going to be a fast walk if we were lucky. And since At about 12km in length with around 3km of ascent the neither of us had set foot in the Cuillin hills before route is long even by Alpine standards. And that’s just navigaon was going to be a big challenge too. the ridge itself – the approach adds an addional 13km of walking and nearly another kilometre of height gain/ Arriving at the Glenbrile campsite on a Saturday loss. Add-in several very exposed rock climbing pitches evening we pitched tents next to a group of four much and a number of abseils and you can see why it’s long younger and much fier looking guys. We enquired of been the tradion to approach the Cuillin Ridge their aims.., “Oh we’re planning to do the ridge Traverse as a full-on climbing expedion taking a couple tomorrow. In a day. Seng off at 03:30.” of days and including at least one bivouac somewhere. This was the last thing we wanted: …and yet… in October 2013, a young Scosh doctor called Finlay Wild ‘ran’ the whole thing in a snitch a gang of four in front of us to queue under 3 hours, solo, unsupported. That’s so much behind on all the climbs and abseils. more than fell running in the tradional sense; as well as the phenomenal physical effort, the Cuillin Ridge So the grim but obvious soluon was chosen – we le Traverse also involves incredibly complex micro- camp at 03:00 and crept out while they slept, feeling navigaon and solo rock climbing without ropes where red but prey smug. Just the small ma.er of the a single error would simply be fatal. walk-in now. With this astonishing effort in mind my long me It was light enough not to need torches and we moved climbing partner Paul has been working on me for a quickly across the moors in the cool twilight. Less than few years now to ‘run’ the Cuillin ridge with him – well an hour had gone by before we made our first major not in 3 hours, but at least in the course of a single day. mistake. Took a wrong turning and ended up climbing And I’ve been very successfully avoiding any sort of up into a rocky valley that led eventually to a lake amid commitment to such an energec oung unl I ran out an extraordinary extra-terrestrial landscape and a of reasonable excuses and a weather window coincided hilltop that was nowhere near the end of the ridge with a free weekend in June 2015. where we wanted to be. In fact we were about a quarter of the way along the ridge. Doh! Somewhat daunted we stashed our gear and The Cuillin really is a volcano and consequently almost backtracked along the ridge to the first summit, Gars- every fooall is on rock, and every alternate step is on bheinn, finally arriving at 06:00 just as the young and fit loose rock. There’s rarely a single well-defined path so four caught us up. Not so smug now. But the sun was rather than occasionally geng lost it’s the other way up and it was clearly going to be a very fine day. round – it’s only occasionally that you’re not lost. It’s almost impossible to describe the full journey along In a few places you are forced to climb – proper rock the ridge in detail (and actually rather pointless to climbing, not at a high standard but with extreme a.empt to do so). So instead here’s a feeling of what exposure. The highlight is the ascent of the ‘Inn Pinn’, it’s like…. imagine traversing the razor-sharp crest of the eponymous Inaccessible Pinnacle. A relavely easy the crater of a giant volcano. The volcano has erupted rock climb by most standards, lile more than a in the middle of an archipelago of mountainous arcc scramble really, but with a good sma.ering of loose islands. And the islands are set in a remote, beauful rock and simply outrageous exposure. And then you and uninhabited sea. have to abseil off. A hard-won Monroe indeed. So our day progressed like this, stumbling along the When you pause to take in crest of the ridge almost perpetually lost and yet the view, it’s simply somehow finding the way. At one point around midday we took a wrong turn and dropped the best part of unbelievable. Breathtaking. 500m before realising our mistake. There was nothing to do but turn on our heels and climb all the way back up again. The rock climbing, about 6 pitches in all, turned out to be the easy bit – the minimal equipment and fell shoes adding to the excitement. Despite our combined age of over 100, Paul and I kept going without a single break, eang and drinking on the hoof so that eventually we le the young and fit four behind. Smugness restored. And at the end of a perfect day we reached the final summit of Sgurr nan Gillean some 11 hours aVer we’d set off. Pathec as a ‘run’ but not too bad as a one-day Cuillin Ridge traverse on a first ever visit I suppose… the Glen Coe Mountain resort, borrowed race pack full of food and kit for the day ahead, partly listening to the Glencoe“Did you hear about that new race Skylinefinal instrucons from the race organiser and partly wiping swarms of midges off my face. And then we around Glen Coe that’s going to be were off… run for the first me this year?” Despite promising myself to start slowly, I got carried along with the rest of the runners and it was only about …said someone (possibly Pete T, although others might 4 miles in that I realised we were doing almost 6 be responsible!) during a training run back last winter. minute miles. Maybe a tad fast?! This soon slowed “Nope, but sounds great,” I replied, and then promptly down as we reached Curved Ridge and the scrambling forgot all about it… …unl a bit later in the year, when I started. A good bit of exposure and some amazing started seeing something about the Glen Coe Skyline views out over Rannoch Moor, all with decent appear online. Taking a look at the route, I was really handholds. And fortunately a couple of bolenecks interested but also a lile nervous. ‘Moderate grade where I was able to grab a bite to eat and some water climbing, unroped’, ‘real danger of while waing for others to climb the next bit. death’ and a bad weather course This was followed by some fantasc that would only be used ‘in the most running along the ridgeline, down into severe of Scosh storms’ all the Lairig Gartain, back up over sounded like things I wouldn’t mind Buachaille Eve Beag and straight down avoiding. But the route did look the other side. Rock and scree-filled steep prey good… 33 miles and 14,000 descents, which suited me as I flew past of climb, with scrambling up Curved quite a few other runners who were Ridge and Aonach Eagach. I thought, being a lile more sensible. Then there I know a way around this – I’ll put an was a good runnable secon before the entry in, which will probably be long slog up to Bidean nam Bian. It was rejected but at least I’ll have tried. great to see Beth on the way, and Pip The only way this could possibly go tried to join me on the rest of the race! wrong was if, yep, you guessed it, the entry got accepted.