I’m absolutely knackered.
Finally the weather forecast looked good for this week just gone. Wednesday looked like the best day so after taking wean 2 to the doctor on Tuesday morning I jumped in the van and drove 450 miles to Skye. Set the alarm for 6am and went to bed about 11pm

Woke up at 04:52 to discover that the forecast was spot on and blue sky abounded. Too excited to sleep any more I got up and commenced eating. As anyone who knows me will agree, I take my eating seriously so it was gone 6 by the time I left the car park at Glen Brittle.

Took about 3 hours to Gars Bheinn and then got more intense and tiring as I headed north along the Cuillin. Got a bit lost on Mhadaih (sp?) and made a complete mess of the Bastiers but managed a good (if tiring) recovery. Up Gillean in the dusk then back to the coll in the dark. It then took me just over 4 hours to get down from there. Cos I was on my own I had no shuttle so had to walk back over Beallach a Maim to my bike at the Fairy Pools. Then cycled down Glen Brittle to the van in the rain. Got to bed around 4am after 20 hours on the hill.

Luckily it rained/drizzled all day Thursday so I did a short ride down Glen Sligachan to work up an appetite for tea in the pub.

On Friday I drove to Torridon and did the classic Coulags /Annat /Coulin /Achnashellach ride, which was damn good.

Having done the key Torridon highlights that I knew about, I was at a bit of a loss what to do next. Didn’t want to drive home yet, so headed to Aviemore.

The weather this morning was again stupendous so I decided to go up the plateau. I parked at Coire Cas and apart from a short section just past the base station I was well chuffed to cycle every bit up to the top of Cairngorm (with shit loads of rests mind).

Bearing in mind what I’d done the days before, my brain was completely fried and my body wasn’t working all that great either, but I did have a rucksak full of tasty food and the path over to Ben Macdui looked phenomenal. The decent off the Gorm to Coire an t Sneachta (sp) was immense and the track over the plateau even better. But given that I was on my own and didn’t have enough spare clothes to survive the night, I elected to take it safe and walk the last section of Macdui.

Running out of superlatives here, but the ridge down to the Cas carpark (starts between Lurchers and Coire an Lochan) was just utterly amazing. Out of this world.

Got back the the van at 4, headed south and got back to Manc a few minutes ago.

Driven just over a thousand miles, but totally worth it. I’ve wanted to do the Cuillin ridge for years, and the Torridon and Cairngorm rides were amazing.

Got a horrible feeling the kids will want to o to Llandegla tomorrow. 😛

Sounds awesome mate, glad you had a great time!.

What was your route in the Cairngorms? Trying to piece it together!.

My route description did suck. I’m completely cabbaged. I’ll write it up better tomorrow.

In the meantime, here’s a frankly bloody amazing* photo from some complete dude called Steve who happened to be standing there with his camera.

Decent off Cairngorm towards Coire an T Sneachda

* When you see how crap my other photos are, you’ll see why I like this one.

Aye, that’s a peach. It’s good being cabbaged, means you’ve had a great day!.

Congratulations on the Cuillin ridge. It’s pissed down every time we’ve contemplated it.

What was your route in the Cairngorms? Trying to piece it together!.

Park at Coire Cas, up the Road* initially. then up the Zigzags* then the Traverse* to the Ptarmigan.
Then round the back of the ‘gorm via the Marquis Well. Really good track, and all rideable. Gets you to the summit weather station.
Then directly west towards Coire an t-Sneachda (photo above)
Round the rim of Coire Sneachda to spot height 1111 at grid ref 993027. Then instead of heading up Cairn Lochan, go south, then SW, along the path towards Lochan Buidhe. Brilliant path:

Then roughly south to Ben Macdui.

Two blokes nearin the summit of Macdui:

Then back north to the Lochan.

Then NNW (midway between Cairn Lochan and the Lairig Ghru) to the Miadan Creag an Leth-choin ridge. (which is essentially the ridge to Coire and Lochain as the Fiacaill ridge is to Coire an T Sneachda.)
Follow that path North,

then NNW

then NW back to the ski Centre.

Looking back up the final descent. Absolutely amazing bit of track.

* ski piste names (I think )

Good effort on the Cuillin. You must be utterly gubbed after all that lot.

oh good god that’s gorgeous. Living your life mate, top notch.

So I think that the Torridon route needs a mention, not least because the listing on mtbtrails.info lists it as the Alternative Torridon loop when quite clearly the Achnashellach descent makes it far far better than the dull as ditchwater descent down the fire roads on the standard Torridon loop they describe. To be fair, all the comments support this, but it’s not obvious if you hop on the site and look for the standard best Torridon route.

http://www.mtbtrails.info/Trail_Venue.aspx?VenueNumber=27#TrailNumber64

If you go to Torridon, do the Coire Lair to Achnashellach descent. It is beyond amazing. (far better than the Annat descent)

I started the route at Coulags rather than Torridon, since it saved me 20 miles driving. Meant that the Annat descent wasn’t the finale, but the Achnashellach descent was, which is all good.
It starts with some landrover track up the Fionn Abhainn valley, either on the old track or the new one they are building for the new hydro scheme. You pass the charming bothy at Clach and then go past the Fionnaraich loch. Good riding up till this point, but the next bit is hikeabike to Bealach na Lice. A path goes off right here to Bealach Ban and upper Coire Lair. I thought about doing this shortcut but wanted to get the full tick. The upper Coire Lair does indeed look phenomenal (see photo later on).

This is the view down from na Lice towards Liathach (and indeed Annat):

The path does indeed go over some of those Moabesque slabs, but not as many as you’d like:

Alas I was on my tod, so didn’t really et the opportunity to take piccies of the descent to Annat. The beginning bit was great:

And the end bit was great but I found the middle bit a bit TheBeast like. Endless braking and loads of grapefruit sized boulders with not real route finding, just plough through the middle.
The last bit had some good slabs.
It true Scottish style, the Torridon Inn wasn’t serving food between 3 and 6, so they pointed me in the direction of the Torridon café and told me to step on it as it closed in 20 minutes.
Sprinted to the café to discover that I had no money or cards with me (tumschie), but luckily the owner took a switch payment over the phone from the missus. Had an extra cake and left a big tip since I wasn’t paying anyway.
The road slog to Coulin was about the most fun I’ve had on the mtb on road. Beautiful scenery and the knowledge that I was heading back to the van and might manage the full 50km loop before dark.
Headed south through the Coulin forest. Ignored the suggestion to follow the fireroad up the hill and down, instead I followed the singletrack along Loch Coulin . Well you would, wouldn’t you?

At the end of the flat bit of valley you can either go straight south over the Coulin pass, or SW over Drochaid Coire Lair. Short of being dead, I can’t think of any conceivable reason why you woudn’t go over to Coire Lair. Initially the landrover track follows the river past the other hydro damn, but then breaks off left at a bridge. What follows is IMHO the best mtb ascent I’ve ever done. No really, it’s amazing. In undulates all the way to the coll, with some easy bits, some tricky bits and some impossible bits, but in between all these there are loads of flat bits and even downhills, so you can rest and get your breath back.

Over the coll and then start the amazing descent. This is the first mellow bit:

This is the view up to the top of Coire Lair. I only went 30m up it for the photo, but am including it as I mentioned it above as an amazing looking route if you turned right at Bealach Na Lice at the start of the ride. (You can just make out the trail in the far distance)

The next section down to Achnashellach blew me away. It was amazing. Sadly I was on my own so only took a few rubbish SetSelfTimerThenRunBackUpTheHillAndTryToCycleDownBeforeThePhotoIsTaken shots. There are loads of slabs, loads of rocky steps and hardly any irritating grapefruit boulder sections where you just hang on and hope.

I realise the photos are a bit mince and don’t do it justice, but that last descent really is amazing. Managed to get back to the van quite early that day, finished shortly after 9pm 😉 Then drove to Aviemore to do the route described above.
(Next time I might try to describe the trip in chronological order.)

lovely report. love it there. I’ve done – in sections – most or all of the Ridge, some bits of it just blew me away. navigation quite tricky and some exposed sections – especially round Basteir – the ledge is just so intimidating.. good choice of locations i’d say!