Only a few days until the Cuillin Ridge

For the last couple of months, Andrew(my climbing partner here in Oxford) and I have been planning a trip to the Isle of Skye to do the Full Cuilin Ridge Traverse. Known as one of the hardest and most famous routes in the UK and one of the finest alpine-style rock climbing routes in Europe, the Cuillin Ridge Traverse consists of 14 munros spread over 12km with over 3000m of height gain and descent.
In two days we will fly up to Skye, rent a car, and drive over to the Cuillin mountains. We'll have three days in which to hopefully give ourselves a 24 hour period of good weather to attempt the ridge. While it's technically not too difficult, route finding and poor weather make for a very low success rate among climbers. Luckily, there are many escape paths down to a road which leads to two towns in the area.

We will hike in to the base of the first mountain and set up camp. Providing we get good weather, we will take off around 3:30am the next morning in order to take advantage of all the daylight possible. We will leave most of our gear there and travel as light as possible. If the weather holds and if we manage to stay on track, we expect to finish the ridge in just under 18 hours. If we encounter difficulties with navigation (likely), we're looking at a bit longer. If weather moves in, we'll either abandon the attempt and make our way off the mountains at our first chance, or take shelter among the rocks and and emergency bivvy bag until it's safe to descend. Once the rocks are wet, all attempts are off, so our fingers are crossed for good weather.

Below, one of the highlights of the route, the 'Inaccessible Pinnacle'
In order to train for this trip, Andrew and I took a trip up to Snowdonia in Northern Wales two weeks ago to do some hiking and climbing. After leaving late and getting a bit lost, we arrived at the hut at 1am, only to find that we were actually locked out of the hut (poor planning on my part)! We spent a decent night in the car, and arose to rain the next morning. We set off, and the rain soon let up. We managed a good day of climbing before encountering a white-out and 60mph winds at around 7pm, at which point we relented. The next day brought pretty good weather, and we got in some more climbing, scrambling, and hiking. I absolutely love the area around Snowdonia!
Here we are, trying not to blow away from the gusts,
And soon after trying not to get too lost in the white-out,
And the next day on the summit of Tryfan (this was not what we set out to do... but we lost our intended route and decided to head for the summit anyway).
And a decent down the Nor-Nor Gulley, after climbing up most of the east face of Tryfan.

We leave for the Cuillin on Saturday and will return on Wednesday. Wish us luck with the weather and navigation! I can't wait!