Skye Dubh Ridge

18-21 May 2025

A group of 9 intrepid pensioners brandishing bus passes and midgie nets boarded the no. 55 bus from Broadford to Elgol at 0720 am on Tuesday 19th May (10 minutes late!) in brilliant sunshine to start their adventure. The group was: Chris, Gary, Ken, John, Bob, Jeff, Bill, Sandy and David. The adventure was going to be tackling the longest continuous rock climb in the UK and certainly one of the remotest, the Dubh Ridge classic scramble.

After arriving at the boat jetty in Elgol, Bella Jane Boat Trips provided a quick and efficient service on the AquaExplore rib to take us on the short journey in calm seas across Loch Scavaig to the landing stage near Coruisk Memorial Hut. Did I mention how perfect the weather conditions were with sunshine, blue skies and little wind but just enough to keep midges at bay?

We set off from the drop-off point at around 8:45am and after a flat and easy 2 km of walking by the loch side the first view of our target came into view.  .

 We shortly reached the toe of the ridge and geared up, donning our climbing helmets and harnesses before starting the 700m of climb over 1 km aiming for the first summit of Sgurr Dubh Beag at 733m. After several consultations of the guide book route description we picked our start point up a grassy gulley.

Not expecting to need any ropes until the abseil, it was a surprise to immediately encounter a difficult and exposed step with minimal handholds to get up and on to the slabs. Most of us were glad to take up Bob’s offer of the knotted rope from above to clip in to our carabiners.

After that we were off and away on the ascent of the smooth 30-degree sandpaper rough gabbro slabs.

There was no difficulty with route-finding at this point as you can practically go anywhere on these steep slabs and much of it is hands-free if you are confident in your boots and balance. The slabs go on and on with many deceptive terraces making this a long and very strenuous ascent. With the sun getting hotter, I think I mentioned the beautiful sunshine, and the views getting more stunning with every metre of ascent, our group of 9 got quite strung out. On the way up we were passed by a couple of young women who were confidently striding up the rocks and slightly later by another couple where the guy had his partner on a rope.

We finally reached the summit of Sgurr Dubh Beag and, after grabbing some quick sandwiches, it was time for the exciting abseil which is what makes this route a moderate rock climb rather than a scramble. Bob quickly set up the abseil using the existing solid belay point and well used gear left in place, as this route is very popular. After issuing clear safety instructions to be passed down the line, Bob was first over the edge and out of sight as he descended almost to the end of the 50m doubled rope (that’s nearly a 25m descent and with a knot at the end of course!) before touching down on a wide rocky ledge.

Getting the remaining 8 down was certainly time consuming but it felt a very efficient process with no real issues, definitely helped by our abseil practice at the Pass of Ballater the previous week.

Sgurr dubh beag

After losing some of the previous height gained on the abseil what follows is the significant scramble to the summit of the munro Sgurr Dubh Mor at 944m. Some tricky route finding was required to climb this ridge with the guide book instructions not being a lot of use. We’d previously sat and watched in the distance as the previous groups had gone ahead of us, but faced with the similar looking blocky rocks and faint traces of previous routes taken, none of this really helped at all. The plan had been for the faster folk to go ahead to pass back info on the route to follow. This probably helped a bit but there were times when I looked behind me either to see our party spread around all over the mountain or little trace of anyone in sight at all !

Climbing sgurr dubh beag

We were thankful to finally reach the summit of Sgurr Dubh Mor at around 4:20pm after around 7 ½ hours since disembarking from the boat. We took some time to soak in the magnificent 360 degree views of the Cuillins, Loch Coruisk way below and the islands of Rum and Eigg, still bathed in the sunshine which I think I’ve mentioned.

As time was getting on I became very conscious that I had booked a taxi pickup from Glen Brittle car park for the group of 9 of us. The original pick-up time had been 6pm but as it became clear that this was not going to be achievable, I sent messages to the taxi driver to delay this to 6:30pm, then 7pm or maybe even later I told him.  We decided at this point that it would be best to split into a faster forward group of 6 and a slower group of 3 in order to have a chance of meeting the taxi before he gave up waiting. It was very fortunate that we had Althea on standby who very kindly agreed to drive round to Glen Brittle to pick up the later group of 3.

The descent into Coire Ghrunnda was certainly memorable in that it was one of the toughest and roughest that I remember doing and seemed to last forever. We saw another walker taking a dip in Loch Coir a Ghrunnda which certainly looked very tempting but I had to keep the route march going to get to the taxi. It was hard to summon up the concentration required to descend the boulder fields below the loch with tired legs but everyone managed with no broken bones.

Loch Ghrunnda

The advance party finally reached Glen Brittle campsite at 7:15pm after 10 ½ hours on the trail. I had a few worried moments when after scouring the site and the car park there was no sign of any minibuses and no phone signal to call the driver. It was a great relief to see the black van turn up about 5 minutes later to take us back to the hostel after a truly fantastic adventure. The later group arrived back at Glen Brittle at around 9:30pm to be greeted by a relieved Althea glad to see all were present and correct if not a little worse for wear!

Fortunately we had planned the usual DHC group dinner for the following night at the Broadford Hotel.

There were several other hills, munros and corbetts achieved over the 3 days we spent on Skye which I’m not going to fully report on due to the length of this blog. But on the day after the Dubh Ridge ascent John climbed Sgurr nan Gillean and waved across at the group of 6 on the splendid Glamaig mountain.

Including Althea a total of 10 stayed at the Broadford Backpackers Hostel for 3 nights. Although the hostel was adequate, it wasn’t really up to the standard we have come to expect for numerous reasons, so can’t really be recommended if an alternative can be found. This blog focusses on the Dubh Ridge climb and traverse to Glen Brittle. Although a number of other hills were climbed this isn’t a comprehensive report of those outings.

Chris