Photographing sunrise on Stac Pollaidh mountain, Assynt

I’m recently back home after a fantastic, if a little rainy, week in the Scottish North West Highlands and one of the main places I wanted to visit in Scotland last week was the summit of Stac Pollaidh mountain in Assynt. I tried last year but persistent gale force winds had prevented it so gladly I had more luck this time around with a more promising weather forecast of light winds and clearing skies.

So the alarm was set for 04.00am and at 04.30am I started ny rather eventful journey from Lochinver to ensure I had plenty of time for the climb to arrive on the summit for sunrise... the drive in itself was a pretty terrifying experience, I lost count of how many deer and rather scary stags I saw wandering around the road, I actually drove at pretty much 30mph all the way!

The climb from the carpark was thankfully less stressful and a bit quicker than I thought so I arrived on the summit in plenty of time to see, hopefully, a sunrise although initially rain greeted me. In the distance though I could see an ever closer break in the cloud and to my delight around 20minutes after sunrise the light appeared.

This is just one of many images, actually a 25 image bracketed Pano to manage the contrast of shooting directly into the sun.

Stac Pollaidh mountain summit view of sunrise in Assynt, Scotland