After this well deserved break and some debate as to whether a very large boulder in front of us was part of the route, we set off again to the base of the boulder. Chris and I were happier climbing this using a rope so Phil very competently lead the route quickly whilst Gary and Charles were bravely soloing another route next to us.

After this exploit (we later realised that we should have avoided the boulder as time was of the essence at the end of the first day) we continued climbing for another couple of hours until we ended up just below the TD gap. The time now started coming into play as Gary informed us how far we were from the ideal Bivi position for the night, this was made even more apparent when 3 climbers moving at a fast pace overtook us.

We were overtaken at one of the most exposed points on the ridge we'd been on all day, it was also at this point that a short free rock climb had to be completed and then continue to the TD gap. It was at this point that I had complete respect for my fellow climbers, everyone except me completed this short exposed rock climb without a rope, with Phil as usual in control and helping me up this section.
Then onto to the frustrating TD gap. The TD gap is

Bivvy Site, Nightfall on th Skye Ridge

half hour before we depart and head towards our start point, the Glen Brittle camp site.

As we progress up the path from Glen Brittle towards the ridge Gary pulls out his plastic pipe connected to his water reserve which allows him to keep moving whilst taking on water. This gave me an idea which members may be able to benefit from. Doctors use similar style pipes for colonique irrigation but struggle to sell them on second hand for some reason. If we bought the second hand pipes cheaply we could make similar systems to Gary's?

As we get closer to the ridge the terrain gets steeper and the scenery gets more spectacular as we progress. Skye is a truly amazing place, it's everything you expect from Scotland and more, my only regret is not being able to get more of it on film.

As we approach the ridge standing at over 3000 feet I ask Phil (he completed the Ridge back in 1989) if it gets much worse than what we've just done, he reassuringly answers "no need to worry about that mate it gets a lot lot worse than that" cheers Phil.

Later in the week I meet a Scot from Arbroath who informed me that a climber had been killed on the ridge a number of weeks earlier. The most unfortunate part of the story was that his mates climbed back up to the same spot to disperse his Ashes when another one of them fell off and once again was killed.

For the purist climber (Phil,Gary,Rumpole and Chris) to say you have completed the ridge is to climb the length of it and reach every summit on it, even if this means going back on yourself and hiking the same bit twice. The HMC posse decided to be purists, dump our rucksacks and head off to reach the 3 peaks to our right, terminating in Gars-Bheinn and then follow the same route back. Once back at the rucksacks we stopped for lunch and an um ongo.

Chris abseiling into the TD Gap

only about 15 foot wide, which means it's necessary to abseil down into the gap then rock climb the V Diff the other side (the V.Diff is a very suspect grade, our group and the group in front of us thought it was harder).

Unfortunately we reached the gap at a bad time, the
climbers who overtook us were rock climbing the other side with another group in the Gap waiting to lead the route. We abseiled into the gap as the temperature started to drop rapidly. Once in the gap the exposure to one side is amazing, not for the faint hearted.
We all abed into the gap and waited a very frustrating hour whilst the inept group in front of us attempted to climb the route and then manoeuvre their rucksacks up the route whilst we stood around getting cold. Phil