Isle Of Skye, September 2003

Richard's Photos

Photos of the September 2003 Skye trip by Richard Silver. Mostly photos of the result of drunkenly telling our mountain guide (Harold) the night before that we wanted to do something 'extreme'. The result was a scramble over some pretty exposed ground to the bottom of the Cioch, a lump of rock sticking out of a big cliff. We then climbed up what I believe is the 'Arrow Route' to just above the Cioch, which was pretty interesting - basically a two pitch slab of gabbro set at 45 degrees with not much else. We dropped down to the bottom of the Cioch over a very exposed neck of rock, sliding along on our backsides (who said climbing was graceful?). We finally climbed onto the Cioch and couldn't see anything due to the cloud. We also found a plastic sword sheath. It later turned out that a sword fight in the film Highlander was filmed on the Cioch, and someone had obviously gone there and re-enacted it!