The Inacessible Pinnacle

The Inacessible Pinnacle. On one side this narrow fin of rock overhangs with an infinite drop, according to WH Murray in Mountaineering in Scotland, with a drop on the other side even steeper and longer. Murray was being hyperbolic: in reality the drop is only 1,500ft on one side, and 3,000ft on the other; and if you fell you would bounce off various slabs and ledges much sooner.

Figure on the In Pinn:

It has been twenty-nine years since I climbed the In Pinn, and twenty-five since I was last on the Cuillin of Skye. It is one of life's mysteries that I have left it so long. Sure, it is far away, midgey, and always raining, but that doesn't quite explain why I haven't been back to one of Scotland's finest hillwalking areas. I suppose the real reason is the technical difficulty of the terrain.

But that's not a problem when you are guided by Skye Guides. Each year my friend Graham and I like to do an adventure (last year was camping on top of Suilven). This year he was keen to hire a guide to go up the Cuillin, and I was keen to do a part of the ridge I hadn't done yet. I was perfectly happy not to go up the In Pinn again, but Graham was desperate to climb it for the third time!

Graham tops out:

What hadn't changed in twenty-nine years was the weather! I was glad of it back in 1992, as it meant I wouldn't be able to see the drops. To make it even easier psychologically, I elected to climb the shorter west ridge. This is considerably harder technically, but in my mind preferable as less exposed. 

In those days a rusty karabiner bolted to the summit rocks provided an anchor to abseil off. When my climbing partner came down after me, he told me he had left his own gear up there as the karabiner I had roped off had been visibly flexing. Hair-raising if true. Today, our guide Tom explained, a chain is maintained by the guiding companies and regularly replaced.

Tom and Graham abseil off:

I enjoyed watching and photographing the pair of them on the In Pinn. But my part of the adventure was coming up next: a part of the Cuillin ridge I had never been on!