This time we came in from the north, following the clear path along Glen Sligachan to a fork. The left branch continues to the bothy and the right soon starts to climb to a bealach below Sgurr na Hain. Here the Cuillin ridge is displayed in all its splendour and many walkers lunch here and then return direct to Sligachan. The more energetic may descend to Loch Coruisk but the contouring path towards Sgurr na Stri is the more obvious though it fades after reaching the ridge of the hill. We scrambled up amongst rocky outcrops, soon gaining the crest of the ridge with stunning glimpses down onto Loch Coruisk and Loch Scavaig, a sea loch, where a tiny boat had probably brought in a party of sightseers from Elgol. Mist was swirling over the Cuillin ridge, coming and going even over our lower hill. It was obvious however, on reaching the first big cairn, that another top lay beyond with an awkward looking rocky gap between. Bad route finding meant that we made this traverse considerably more difficult than necessary, ending up descending a tricky rock step to reach what was probably the true summit of the hill.
Sgurr na Stri was an extra special hill for me because here I was completing the ascent of every hill in Britain over 1500 feet high. Of course I had not been up every little bump with a 1500 foot contour. There is a precedent for considering 500 feet as the drop required for a separate hill. This was the criteria used by J Rooke Corbett in his list of Scottish hills between 2500 and 3000 feet high. More recently the Graham list utilised the same drop for extending this downwards to those hills between 2000 and 2500 feet. It seemed very logical to me to introduce a lower category of hill between 1500 and 2000 feet and because 1500 feet is just half the height of a Munro I decided to call them Mini-Munros! Munro's list is of course the most well known list of Scottish hills. Sir Hugh Munro used no specific drop to decide which hills should be separate mountains and which should be subsidiary tops. This has resulted in many arguments and revisions of the tables over the years, not just because of resurveying but because of difference of opinion as to what should count as a separate hill. Alan Dawson's list of 'Marilyns' uses 500 feet or (since OS maps are now metric) 150m and this was the list I had been using. The 221 Corbetts and 224 Grahams are subsets of this list. All the Scottish Marilyns over 3000 foot are now Munros (though some Munros are not Marilyns). Using this list the number of Scottish Mini-Munros is exactly 250 along with 45 in Wales, 34 in England and 2 in the Isle of Man.
Sitting on the summit of Sgurr na Stri I had little time to contemplate these numbers nor the long road which had brought me to this glorious spot. Behind lay so many years of hill walking, so many acres of bog, so many empty hills, summits swathed in mist or long vistas, with towards the end the knowledge that every hill in sight was one which we had climbed. The tapes of Christine Primrose and Arthur Cormack worn thin as they sang to us in Gaelic along the A74, calling us back again and again to the beauty of the Highlands. But today I could only gaze in wonder from this magnificent summit. Certainly this climb marked one completion but it is certain that we shall not stay away from the mountains. Here are some pictures taken from this outstanding viewpoint, unfortunately somewhat muted by the swirling mist and lack of sunshine.
Please click on a picture to see a full sized version.
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