THE CRUX

Last summer, self-confessed ‘average adventurer’ James Forrest completed all 282 of Scotland’s Munros in an intensive six-month push. Here he describes the most knee-trembling part of the journey – Skye’s famous Inaccessible Pinnacle

- James Forrest

I AM A HILLWALKER out of his comfort zone. This is knee wobbling, nerve-jangling, the-end-is-nigh exposure. Balanced precariously on a serrated, fin-like rocky spine, I should feel utterly petrified. But, strangely, I don’t.

A sort of calmness has descended over me, induced by the nirvana-like mountain artistry all around. I am floating above a sea of clouds: an achingly pretty inversion kissed with an exquisite, double-rainbow Brocken spectre. The blanket of white is pierced only by the jagged ridge below my feet. It feels like I’m surfing the clouds, riding the serrated backbone of a flying dragon. Am I in heaven?

No – but I’m close as it gets. I’m halfway up the notorious Inaccessible Pinnacle on the Isle of Skye’s Cuillin: a spiky, toothed ridge of legendary alpine proportions. Brutally built and terrifyingly sheer, it is a seven-mile-long labyrinth of monstrous turrets, razor-thin arêtes and precipitous craggy obstacles – the UK’s most iconic ridge and the Holy Grail for the British scrambler.

There are 11 Munro summits here and I’m taking on the most technically difficult one. The In Pinn – or Sgurr Dearg, to use its Sunday name – is a spectacular blade of rock with dizzying exposure. It reminds me of a shark’s dorsal fin: sharp, narrow and a sign of impending doom.

My task is to climb the edge of that forbidding fin.

Facing the crux

I’m already halfway up. The first pitch – a blur of trembling legs, tense fingers gripping cold bare rock, feet desperately searching for holds, and eyes being drawn, sadistically, to look down – is over. And now, perched on a rocky ledge, I can relax for a moment. Ahead of me is the crux of the climb, the most difficult manoeuvres and the scariest exposure – but I temporarily block them out of my mind. I pause and let the scenery soothe my soul.