Teams tackle the Foinaven ridge

Pupils return from the mountain expedition

After supper last night the teams set off in minibuses for a quiet road end close to the mountains. From there it was a two-hour walk in, with camping gear, along a stalkers track to our wild camp spot. The objective was to take some of the height gain out of the following day (camping at approx.. 500m above sea level) and to camp in a beautiful spot. Both were achieved in good time.

When the pupils woke this morning we were enveloped in cloud giving an eerie feel to the morning procedures of making tea and cooking breakfast on the trangia stoves.

The teams broke camp at about 8.30 am and set off up the initial open slopes to gain the ridgeline. The skyline ridge links a number of subsidiary summits and tops, narrowing in places, dropping steeply down into the Pass of the Bellowings and traversing the path around a huge pillar of rock known as the Black Tower. With the low cloud lifting and lowering, and being sucked through the cols we kept getting glimpse of the route to come, and snapshot of views out to the west coast on our left and the north coast on our right.

The final summit and highest point of the mountain sits about two thirds of the way along the ridge and both the Reds and the Blues had reached it by 1.30pm. The cloud lifted almost completely for our descent and we were back down at road level by about 5pm.

There are some tired feet amongst the team but their efforts on the mountain last night and today have been outstanding. There was quiet determination, great strength of character and a real air of positivity amongst the two teams today. They have really risen to the challenge of the Foinaven ridge, never an easy undertaking, but one that we hope they will have gained a lot from.

A fair few of the team swam in the sea when we got back to the Adventure School, a great way to cool off after a hot day. Lasagne and sticky toffee pudding didn’t last long on the plates at supper this evening!

Tomorrow follows a similar pattern to Sunday, with rock climbing and abseiling for some, and sea kayaking for others.

More news in due course.