The Summer Isles from Stac Pollaidh

I am delighted that my photo “The Summer Isles from Stac Pollaidh” has been used on the cover of Philip Marsden’s new book “The Summer Isles: A Voyage of the Imagination”, published by Granta. This photo was taken on an early April afternoon several years ago on a weekend trip to beautiful Assynt. At first the light wasn’t particularly promising and I was concentrating on enjoying the lovely scrambling on Stac Pollaidh’s Torridonian sandstone summit ridge. Later, the view opened out to the west as I reached the summit. Dark clouds glowered over the sea but bright sunlight shone through highlighting patches of water around the many tiny islands forming the southern portion of the Summer Isles.

The Summer Isles are a group of small islands in the mouth of Loch Broom near Ullapool through which the ferry between Ullapool and Stornorway in the Western Isles regularly travels.

Purchase a copy of the book here from Amazon.

Stac Pollaidh is a wonderful mountain in minature in the Coigach area north east of Achiltibuie. It’s summit ridge is easily reached by path that curves round the back of the mountain from the road. The summit ridge itself is a maze of sandstone pinnacles where a greater or lesser amount of scrambling may be had. Beware though, there are some big vertical drops to be encountered by the unwary. The actual summit is guarded by a steep pinnacle. The direct climb of this is Difficult rock climbing for a few metres though there is a wee dodge round the south side of this if needed. Whether climbing to the summit or not, the path continues around the back of the hill and can be followed all the way around back to the road. This is a lovely walk on a reasonable path in amazingly scenic wild terrain; highly recommended.

See the map below for the locations of these photos.