Wild Suardal

Sun, Sep 25, 2016

A wild night on Saturday as the autumn storm season began with a rattling roof, torrential rain and gushing winds roaring round the side of the local hills. The trees danced all night so they were pleased when it dawned bright and sunny though the wind was still high.

As I threw the stuff in the car, a buzzard screeched overhead, quartering the hillside looking for food.

As the weather was pretty bad and most of the local hills were clagged in I fancied an ascent of Beinn Suardail above Strath. It’s a great wee hill for a wild day so I headed down the old railway track before turning off up the steep hillside and deep heather.

Some nice rocky bits kept interest up while the sun blasted through the black clouds now and then. As I reached the top the weather crapped out big time as a blast came in off the Atlantic. First obscuring Blaven and the ridge, it blotted out the landscape around Torrin before hitting my tiny summit cairn but I was ensconsed behind it, munching away and enjoying every minute of the wild weather.

Back down the SW ridge and another shelter behind an even smaller cairn as another storm ripped through the landscape, then down to the old diatomite mines and back along the railway path.

A grand day out finished off with a cracking rainbow over Broadford Bay.