Suilven - Scotlands Wilderness at its best

Suilven - a fantastic mountain on the isolated West Coast of Scotland - the isolated area of Absynt has an end of world feeling.

Standing at only 730m it does not even make a Munro status, but its shear isolation and prominence makes this climb an epic outing. I wanted to climb something isolated in the North of Scotland.

We drive from Edinburgh up the east coast and though some single track roads arrive in Lochinver at 2am in the morning. We quickly place our tent next to the Glen Canisp trailhead and sleep a few hours. We get up at 7am and I prepare warm tea and a breakfast for my two sons.

At 8am soon after sunrise we leave and start the beautiful 10km hike to the foot of the mountain. Suilven raises above everything else - the similarity with the Matterhorn is stunning. The ATV track is good but we only gain elevation very slowly due to the ondulating terrain.  The landscape is breathtaking, with marshes everywhere and the light very strong. No clouds whatsoever... 2.5h later we arrive at the trailhead proper and a small cairn marks the the way to Suilven. Now we hike up a boggy but well visible path and traverse between the two lochs.

Now comes the steep part - a good track goes up the steep (35-40 degrees) couloir for 400 vertical meters to reach the E ridge of Suilven. Once we get up the view to the S across many lochs out to the sea is great. But we meet very strong wind. We decide to attempt the summit nonetheless but on the way up on the ridge the wind becomes stronger and stronger with gusts well above 60 kmh. The path has a few exposed parts. Only 50m below the summit we decide to turn around as the wind is too strong and we risk to be blown off the ridge (not good in such an isolated place :)

We find a slightly sheltered spot and we have food and warm tea. I am tempted to descend the S side couloir but I ditch the plan as the way out would take us much longer than the way in. So we descend the N couloir again and retrace all our way back. The light is fantastic but the 10 km out agin are getting looong. 

We are happy when we reach the car after quite a long hike. What a place! Highly recommended. It has a definitive end of the world feeling.