The north ridge of Sgùrr nan Gillean and the hardest of the three ridges to its summit: five pinnacles taken in turn, with an abseil off the third. Described as one of the best routes of its grade anywhere in the country — around 600 m of scrambling and easy climbing in spectacular positions.

Sgùrr nan Gillean 964 m, Pinnacle Ridge

Grade 3 / Difficult / 11.2 km / 9 hours / 1029 m ↗

The five pinnacles

   
1st From a shoulder at the mouth of Coire a’ Bhasteir, zigzagging ledges — good scrambling following lines of basalt through the gabbro
2nd A quick, easy walk
3rd The main scrambling, up a steep basalt staircase, a few short rope-lengths. The abseil comes off the far side
4th Knight’s Peak, 914 m
5th The summit of Sgùrr nan Gillean

The abseil

This is the logistical crux, and it settles the rope question: off the third pinnacle, a tricky start from the fixed chain onto a steep slab, then 22 m of slab down to the col.

Take a 50 m rope. Reports are explicit that a 50 m was fine, but that reaching right down into the nick of the col needed the full 50 m doubled.

Wikipedia notes the ridge “requires a climber to have a rope and harness and be capable of abseiling, unless the third pinnacle is omitted by bypassing on the east side” — so there is a way to skip it, and it is worth knowing where that bypass is before committing.

Descent

Reverse the South-East Ridge, the Tourist Route, a Grade 3 rock scramble in its own right — the summit sits at the junction of the West Ridge, Pinnacle Ridge and the South-East Ridge, and the West Ridge also needs ropework, so it is not the soft way off.

Logistics

  • Start and finish at Sligachan - parking lot. Sgùrr nan Gillean is visible from the village.
  • Skye Guides put the route at 8 hours guided; the report the figures above come from took 9.
  • Note the geography: this is the one objective on the list that is not on the mainland, and it is a long drive from Torridon and further from Glen Coe. Worth pairing with something else on Skye rather than treating it as a day trip.

Notes

  • Grade varies by source and by system: Skye Guides give “Grade 3/Difficult”; it is traditionally a 3S in scrambling grades, which under the newer scale has become grade 4; as a climb it is called Mod/Diff. Wikipedia simply calls it a rock climb. It is a step up in seriousness from An Teallach.
  • Rock is gabbro with basalt intrusions — the basalt lines give the scrambling its staircases, and they are the bits that go slippery when wet.