The iconic ridge of the Black Cuillin on the Isle of Skye is the UK’s most challenging mountain range. Over 11 kilometres long and above 3,000 feet in places, the ridge contains 11 Munros and 16 other summits. In The Black Ridge, Simon Ingram offers a powerful distillation of the atmosphere, history and experience of the ridge: Britain’s ultimate mountain range.
Plagued by ferocious weather and built from rock that tears skin and confounds compasses, a crossing of the Cuillin is the toughest mountaineering expedition in the British Isles. But the traverse is only part of its lure. Hewn from the innards of an ancient volcano, this mountain range stands like a crown on an island drenched in intrigue. While nineteenth-century climbers flocked to the Alps, the ridge lay untrodden and unyielding. When a generation of mountaineers did come, they found a remarkable prize: the last peaks of Britain to be climbed, peaks that would be named after those who climbed them. Along the way, many others, from artists and poets to mystics and wanderers, have been lured by the Cuillin's haunting beauty. Those who have been seduced by the deadly magic of these mountains attest to the complexity of humans' relationship with the intrigue of our wildest places.
The Black Ridge is a journey through the history and into the heights of the Cuillin of Skye - from the Ridge's violent birth to the tales of its pioneers, its thrills, its myths and its monsters. From a night spent in a cave beneath its highest peak, to the ascent of its most famous pinnacle, this is an adventure on foot through all seasons across the most mesmerising mountain range in Britain
Split into two parts, the Ascent and the Traverse, the narrative of this book follows a complete, continuous expedition along the Ridge. The narrative of this journey is interwoven with history of the region and of the explorers who have braved the climb, the natural history of the area and its artistic and cultural significance over the ages. The result is the definitive book about the atmospheric experience and cultural history of Britain’s most unique and most dangerous peaks. It is simply the hardest place in the land: a place described by the mountaineer Frank Smythe as "Britain’s only true mountains."
Illustrated with a few black and white photographs.
By Simon Ingram.
Hardback, 24cm x 16cm, 400 pages.
Published 2021.
ISBN: 978-0-008226-23-7.