Ryan MacLean, one of our Torridon Activities instructors, led our guests Mr & Mrs Collier on Liathach last weekend. The mountain had been a goal for Mrs Collier for years. As Ryan reports, it was a pleasure to help rise to the challenge.

I have been fortunate enough to have guided Mr & Mrs Collier over the last three years with the end goal of one day being able to summit Liathach.

Three years ago their adventure started on Ben Damph on a misty, summers day with lunch on the summit in a group shelter and eventually the mist lifted on the descent for some amazing views.

The second hill we guided them up was Beinn Alligin. Once on the ridge we were graced once again by the mist but they loved it and on the descent the chat started for next year’s adventure which was the assault of Liathach. This finally happened last Sunday (19th July).

The day started off brightly, with the cloud lifting and the sun shining through. But once high on to the ridge the cloud came down and so did the rain, a weather pattern is now known as the Collier Mist as this has happened on all three occasions now.

As we were traversing west, we eventually reached the main summit of Liathach Spidean Choire Liath and had a quick lunch stop in the Collier Mist.

Once lunch was over we continued west along the ridge in the mist and eventually, as we approached the final summit Mullach An Rathan, the mist started to lift and break and once we descended around 300ft from the ridge to head down, we came out of the cloud.

Once at the road side, we looked up to the ridge, all the cloud had lifted and we were graced with amazing views of the mighty Liathach ridge.

A great day was had by all. It was a pleasure to guide them once again on another another fantastic achievement by Mr & Mrs Collier and after all these years of staring up at the Liathach ridge, they can now say they have done it.

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