SGURR DEARG TO SGURR MHADAIDH
The section from Sgurr Dearg, over Banachdich, (3:20pm) Thormaid (3:45pm) and Ghreadaidh became a sort of blur. The scrambling was relentless. By this time it was clear that we would not make Sgurr nan Gillean before our cut off time of 9:00pm although we thought we might manage Bruach na Frithe. On Ghreadaidh we spoke with two men who were out stashing supplies for an attempt on the ridge they were intending to make on the Saturday (14th May). (If they read this then let us know if you made it)? They had come up via An Dorus and our hearts sank when they said it had taken them 2 hours from An Dorus. They then relented and said perhaps it had only been one hour. It was now 4:00pm so we continued on and our spirits rose when we reached An Dorus in a mere half an hour! Five minutes later we were atop the first (named the fourth) summit of Mhadaidh. We reached the nose on the ascent of the second top at 5:45 pm. This is a Difficult climb that we had done a couple of days previously ascending the west side of the nose. It had involved hugging the top of the nose with both arms and pulling yourself up. I suggested we step round to the right where there was more room to don our harnesses and extract the rope from the rucksack. We now discovered that the right of the nose is less exposed and slightly easier to climb than the side we had previously climbed!!

We had already agreed that we would exit the ridge at Bruach na Frithe and walk down its north west ridge to the car park on the Glen Brittle road. We were able to organise this via our prearranged radio contact with our ‘support team’ at 6:00pm. Radio contact was good despite the fact that we were not quite in line of sight of the car park at the time.