Wild Wanderings

Welcome to our regular feature showcasing the talents of the nation’s best writers.

The Great Prow was hidden in the shadows of the blue mountain. The Western Isles shimmered in the sheen of the calm seas. The sharp sgurrs of the Black Cuillins cut the horizon in an evanescent row of teeth. The heat of a summer’s day reflected from the ridge. Above the Blaven – Clach Glas col, sitting in the heather and shading his eyes from the glare, the Professor looked at the north wall of the mountain.

Blaven had been untouched for years. Its potential had been discovered in the end. It was the familiar story... The old guidebook had tried to preserve its anonymity: uninspiring low-grade routes, names like East Face, Central Buttress, and Northern Ridge, linked with the pioneers, Abraham, Pilkington and Naismith. It was a lost land, full of doubtful Diffs and impossible Mods. Its mysterious aura remained intact, surviving the cryptic journal entries inserted by inveterate new-route exploiters who snatched out the minor lines. The well-worn trade routes of Glen Brittle controlled the Skye climbing scene. Blaven was a mountain that was forgotten...

The Great Prow sits astride the east ridge of Blaven. It is a big angular pinnacle, a dark dolomitic tower of weathered gabbro that juts out from a banded curtain like the battered bow of a monstrous longship. A symbol of affirmation raised to the heavens in a gesture of sublime indifference, it derides and challenges in the same breath.

The Great Prow breaks into the broad, tilted avenue of boulders below the bealach. Its blunt profile rises for over 300ft in a series of overlapping and overhanging creases interspersed with brief slanting ledges. On one side there is a massive slab, on the other a splintered sliver of rock, both suspended over an overhanging pedestal. A faultless line runs beside the cloven splinter to a final headwall, the direct line to a twisted figurehead framed against the sky. Red deer wandered undisturbed on the mountain. The Great Prow was unique and inviolate.

About the author

Based in St Andrews, Phil Gribbon is a veteran climber, with 70 years of mountaineering experience and over 100 first ascents of Arctic alpine peaks. His new book Wild Wanderings, published by Luath on 22 May (£9.99) is a collection of his best climbing tales from Scotland and elsewhere.