08 Aug Overcoming a fear of heights to summit Skye’s Inaccessible Pinnacle, the hardest of the Munros

This week I managed to summit a Munro I’d been dreading since the day I learned of it, called the ‘In Pinn’. For me, the challenge was both a physical and mental challenge as I was doing a real rock climb for the first time, while trying to overcome my fear of heights, which I was convinced would mean I would never be able to ‘bag’ this particular Munro.

WHAT IS THE IN PINN?

The In Pinn, short for Inaccessible Pinnacle, is the hardest of all the Munros to summit, because unlike every other Munro, a rock climb is required to make it to the top. The In Pinn protrudes from the summit of Sgurr Dearg on the Isle of Skye’s enormous Cuillin Ridge, in the form of a fin-shaped pillar of rock.

What makes the In Pinn so tricky is the narrow ridge (corridor) of rock needing to be overcome to reach the summit is extremely narrow – at times it is only a foot or two in width – with very significant drops on both sides.

For experienced rock climbers, the climb itself is relatively straight forward, but it is the exposure that makes this climb difficult, particularly to those rock climbing for the first time, which will be the position of most people attempting the In Pinn.

The summit was – as its name suggests – inaccessible until 1880 when two brothers, Charles and Lawrence Pilkington became the first people to successfully ascend it. Despite the summit being accessed, the ‘inaccessible’ name continued to be used.

Sir Hugh Munro, the man who produced the first comprehensive list of all of Scotland’s mountains over 3,000 feet in altitude and whose surname was given to them, never climbed the In Pinn himself, one of three Munros he never managed to summit before his death in 1919.

The In Pinn lies on the Isle of Skye’s Cuillin ridge, which is home to 11 Munros, of which In Pinn is the second highest peak at 3,234 feet in altitude.

GETTING MENTALLY PREPARED

I was very apprehensive about doing the In Pinn. I had wanted to do it to mark three years since I got into hiking the Munros when going through depression – something to prove to myself I had come a long way in that time. But soon after I had arranged with my hiking friends to do In Pinn, I was beginning to regret that decision!

I told myself that I would at least go on the hike, make it to the top of Sgurr Dearg and then decide whether I thought I could do it or not.

But in the hope that I would be able to do it, I started to research more about the In Pinn. Any Munro I do I tend to do a bit of research into it, whether it’s looking over maps, messaging people I know who have done that Munro before, or looking over YouTube videos of it.

When I was the programme editor for the Fife Flyers (a professional ice hockey club in Kirkcaldy) a few years back, I remember doing an interview with one of the club’s Canadian forwards, Liam Heelis, who had studied sports psychology while at university.

It was a really interesting interview where he talked about the importance of mentally preparing for a game, including pre visualising what was going to happen, everything from who was there to the colours and sounds. He would then imagine how plays in the game would go and where he would need to be positionally to have a positive effect on the outcome.

That stuck with me, and so I would watch over GoPro videos available on YouTube of people doing the In Pinn. While it was scary to see how narrow the ridge was in places and how big the drops were, it at least gave me a good idea of what to expect.

From there I was able to visualise what it would be like for me to do the climb, from knowing to expect my heart to be racing at the beginning of it and that I would want to back out to which parts of the ridge I would find more challenging than others and how big the drops were likely to be!

On the way up the mountain path to the pinnacle, I kept thinking about ‘what would I do if I froze?’, ‘what if I fell?’, ‘what if I got halfway up and needed to turn back?’. But I then eventually turned that on its head and realised negative thinking wasn’t going to help me. So I forced myself to think about the reasons why I would succeed – I had done 168 Munros before, I had done a few exposed scrambles on other mountains such as Liathach and The Saddle, and that I had tried indoor wall climbing in the past. We were also with two professional guides who were completely competent and had taken a number of people up the In Pinn before.

When we reached the In Pinn summit, and we saw the In Pinn, it hit me that this was for real and I would soon be going up it! I watched those abseiling down from its summit, watching for their technique and again trying to visualise what it would be like for me coming down the same way.

Surprisingly, the drops on either side of the pillar, while significant, weren’t as big as I was expecting them to be. That gave me a little comfort before being called to rope up by the guide before he took me and my climbing partner, Grace, to the foot of the ridge.

THE CLIMB

Shaking off the lingering but still strong feelings to pull out last minute, I made the decision I was going to do it. Standing at the bottom of the In Pinn, looking up as the guide went ahead up the rocks, my heart began racing, as I knew it would.

I then started to block everything out. I didn’t want to take in where I was, how I was feeling, if I thought I would do it, if I was worried I would freeze. I just blocked all thoughts, negative and positive completely out, and just focussed on where I would be putting my hands and boots next.

As I made my way up the ridge, the climb was steeper and less straight forward than it had appeared in the videos. There was a point early on when I wasn’t sure I was going the right way up onto the ridge, but I just kept moving up and up, making sure Grace wasn’t too far behind me as I couldn’t move too far ahead without the rope pulling me back.

As we made it up onto the ridge I looked ahead at all times, only looking down to make sure I was putting my boots in the right position to push me upwards. I knew in the corner of my eye we had gained a good bit of height, but I didn’t want to think about that.

We reached the guide a few metres further up after ascending the ridge, who then stopped us to go ahead and secure the ropes before the second part which would lead us to the In Pinn’s summit.

He called back to climb and we set off again. Although it was less steep, the ridge narrowed significantly. Looking ahead I couldn’t believe a human being would be able to make it through the narrowness of it without falling off! But I put those thoughts aside and just focussed on going forward.

As we moved up and up, I couldn’t help but notice the sheer drops on both sides. My heart was racing. But I did feel secure on the rope. The only other element that felt a little challenging was the strong winds which had picked up significantly since we reached the Sgurr Dearg summit as a group. But again I just kept moving forward, not allowing me to think about anything else other than where my hands and boots were going. I was thankfully able to keep it that simple.

We were almost at the top when there was a slightly larger gap on the ridge than I had experienced so far. I realised I wouldn’t be able to push myself up from the route I was taking on the crest of the ridge so would have to shuffle over very slightly to my right to use a small rock platform to push me on to the next part. However, the platform was next to a sheer drop down below – as big as any drop I had seen so far that day! One slip and you could be away.

But I blocked it out and managed to reposition my body to get onto the small platform – despite the huge drop it was next to! – and push myself very slowly upwards, dragging myself onto the rock above. I was worried at this point I would slip and fall back, but I clung on and managed to even use my elbows to claw my way up.

From there I continued on to the guide, crawling rather than scrambling to reach him.

He was smiling and got me and Grace to have a seat on a large rock before he reset things again for the abseil down.

It was then I asked if I could touch the true summit of the In Pinn, which was at the back of the rock the guide was using to set the abseil ropes.

The guide came round and let me climb up – only requesting that I didn’t try to climb up fully like Danny Macaskill! I positioned myself on a large rock below the summit, allowing me to reach my hand up just enough to touch the highest rock. I did it!

I let out a loud “yes!!!” before carefully climbing down.

We had reached the summit within about 30 minutes of climbing the In Pinn, which just flew by.

THE ABSEIL

I think for most people, abseiling down would be quite easy, but for me it was the height which ensured my heart – which had calmed down after making it to the top – started to race again. Looking up at the In Pinn from below, the abseil down doesn’t actually look that far, but when you’re up there looking down it looks very different! It’s a significant drop to the ground.

The key to abseiling is putting all your weight back as you walk backwards off the summit. But it’s something – again with a fear of heights – I found hard to convince myself to do.

As I first started to walk backwards I couldn’t quite get it right, as I was uneasy about putting all my weight backwards (out of fear the rope would give and I would fall backwards off the edge). But I eventually got it, trusting the guide and the rope while taking long and deep breaths while descending. By the end of it I had totally got the hang of it and was down within seconds.

When I reached the bottom the relief I felt was immense, and as I walked up onto the Sgurr Dearg summit to watch as Grace came down after me, I couldn’t believe I’d actually done it. It was a very overwhelming feeling of achievement. For rock climbers this would have been an easy thing to do but for a long time In Pinn has been my Everest.

To achieve something I didn’t think I would have been able to do gives you an immense feeling of achievement. It’s a very special feeling to prove yourself wrong.

Well done to the whole team (Katie, David, Debbie, Jamie and Grace) for completing the In Pinn and to Synergy Guides for being an excellent and professional guiding company to lead us up.