There was a walking group holiday to the Isle of Skye at the beginning of September, staying in self-catering accommodation belonging to the Sligachan hotel.
This time nine of us were mad enough to go up a mountain. The plan was to go up Sgùrr nan Eag, walk along the ridge to the east, and decide when we got down to the col whether to head down from there or continue along the ridge up Gars-bheinn.
We started off from the car park at the bottom end of Gleann Bhreatail, by the Loch, and almost immediately went wrong, heading along the coast instead od up towards the mountains. We soon realised this, but had to cut across some moorland to get back to the right path.
Once we were past the end of Sròn na Ciche, the path curved round and started heading up the steep valley (Coir a' Ghrunnda), eventually coming to a tarn (Loch Coir a' Ghrundda) at the top where we stopped for lunch.
After lunch, we started up the steep slope, heading for Bealach a' Garbh-choire, which is between Sgùrr nan Eag and Sgùrr Dubh an Da Bheinn. We found a bit of a path which was fairly easy to get up, without too much scrambling; it didn't go to the Bealach but went up more towards Sgùrr nan Eag. Sgùrr nan Eag has a long summit ridge, and the path came up at the beginning of it; we followed the ridge along as it gradually got higher until we came to the cairn that marks the top.
We descended to the col along the ridge to the East, as planned. But when we got down there we found that it wasn't going to be possible to get down into the Coire from there, and the ridge up to Gars-bheinn looked rather sharp, and in fact the best option was back the way we'd come, starting by going back up Sgùrr nan Eag. We were annoyed about this, up until the time that the sun came out and the clouds lifted and we got views that we'd never have got had things gone as planned.
When we got back down, we found that the camp site shop sold ice creams.
