My friend Terry was up North visiting Assynt he had a couple of great days. I cover for him when he is alone on the hill. It’s a bit of back up for him he sent me a few great photos of this classic mountain.
Sgùrr an Fhìdhleir – the Fiddler
From walk highlands – The moorland walk to the peak of Sgùrr an Fhìdhleir disguises the drama of the peak’s far side. Approached up the fairly gentle south western flanks, from the summit there is an amazing contrast as the ground plunges away almost 500 metres vertically with amazing views down to the loch and of the surrounding Assynt peaks.
Straightforward hillwalk across moorland terrain; navigation could be difficult in misty conditions and there are vertical drops in the vicinity of the summit.
In the Corrie is the best view and this mountain is a classic when seen from the Stac Polly road.
226m, 9 pitches. Climb the slabs in the centre of the nose, follow a grassy right trending groove to a cave belay. step right under the roof to a slab with crampon scratches (difficult with tall sack) trend up and left to a large block belay. climb the ramp above to a ledge. head up on the right of the ledge and trend left onto the arete move up below the rusty peg, and climb above. follow the corner above to easier ground. First ascent N Drasdo & C Dixon – seemingly the Gary Latter guide gives a more detailed and accurate croute description.
N Drasdo & C Dixon.
The Nose of the Fhidhleir has always been a superb looking line. I summer many years ago I failed on it the gear was poor and there was grass and vegetation in places. In these days the gear was not great but we had an adventure and abseiled of a manky peg. I never returned to climb the nose but did many routes in the Assynt area on Quinag and Stac Polly. In season 2008/9, Simon Richardson and Ian Small completed a long sought line on the side of the Fhiddler.
This place has so many memories a remote mountain yet a huge part of my life. Among these memories are of a great pal the Team Leader of Assynt MRT Phil Jones was killed on Seanna Bhraigh in an avalanche in Feb 1991 it seems so many years ago. He was out training with the team in the Corrie when a slab avalanche broke away. He was such a good guy we had a good liaison with him and the Assynt team great folk covering a huge area.
When the news broke I was at just coming home from running the annual winter course for the RAF mountain rescue Teams this was 14 days away from home when the news was broken by the BBC. They just said that a MRT team leader had been killed, no name was given and it was an awful time for our families. These were the days before mobile phones etc. My partner was so upset as she thought it was me. It was my good friend Phil the Assynt Team Leader who was going to climb the Nose with me and had climbed it a few times before. Gear had improved by 1991 but it was not to be. So I never climbed that route yet every time I see it I think of Phil. He told us of so many local crags he and his friends climbed on and shared much of it with the team.
Glaciers, grinding West, gouged out
these valleys, rasping the brown sandstone,
and left, on the hard rock below –
the ruffled foreland –
this frieze of mountains, filed
on the blue air –
Stac Polly,
Cul Beag, Cul Mor, Suilven,
Canisp –
a frieze and
a litany.
Who owns this landscape?
Has owning anything to do with love?
For it and I have a love-affair, so nearly human
we even have quarrels. –
When I intrude too confidently
it rebuffs me with a wind like a hand
or puts in my way
a quaking bog or loch
where no loch should be. Or I turn stonily
away, refusing to notice
the rouged rocks, the mascara
under a dripping ledge, even
the tossed, the stony limbs waiting.
I can’t pretend
it gets sick for me in my absence,
though I get
sick for it. Yet I love it
with special gratitude,since
it sends me no letters, is never
jealous and, expecting nothing
from me, gets nothing but
cigarette packets and footprints.
Who owns this landscape? –
The millionaire who bought it or
the poacher staggering downhill in the early morning
with a deer on his back?
Who possesses this landscape? –
The man who bought it or
I who am possessed by it?
False questions, for
this landscape is
masterless
and intractable in any terms
that are human.
It is docile only to the weather
and its indefatigable lieutenants –
wind, water and frost.
The wind whets the high ridges
and stunts silver birches and alders.
Rain falling down meets
springs gushing up –
they gather and carry down to the Minch
tons of sour soil, making bald
the bony scalp of Cul Mor. And frost
thrusts his hand in cracks and, clenching his fist,
bursts open the sandstone plates,
the armour of Suilven;
he bleeds stories down chutes and screes,
smelling of gun powder.
Norman MacCaig
from The Poems of Norman MacCaig (Polygon, 2005)
Reproduced by permission of Polygon, an imprint of Birlinn Ltd.
they gather and carry down to the Minch
tons of sour soil, making bald
the bony scalp of Cul Mor. And frost
thrusts his hand in cracks and, clenching his fist,
bursts open the sandstone plates,
the armour of Suilven;
he bleeds stories down chutes and screes,
smelling of gun powder.
There are many ways to climb this mountain you can scramble up from the sea along the ridge but to me the best views are from the Loch.
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