Photographing sunrise on Stac Pollaidh mountain, Assynt

12 Nov

A stunning sunrise from the summit of Stac Pollaidh mountains in Assynt, Scotland. — Stac Pollaidh mountain summit view of sunrise in Assynt, Scotland

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, by Scottish standards it’s a relatively small mountain peak at just over 2000ft but I’d heard the Stac Pollaidh view was pretty special. 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, the walking route is steep in places but pretty steady and certainly in comparison to most of Scotland’s mountains, 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.

The first image in the blog shows just how stunning the scenery is from Stac Pollaidh mountain summit, it’s actually a 25 image bracketed Pano to manage the contrast of shooting directly into the sun and stitched together in Photoshop to make the one image. As the cloud started to break the sunrays gor increasingly impressive with shafts of light falling on the flanks of Sgorr Tuath looking to the south and illuminating the waters of Loch Lurgainn. After taking several images as the sun rose higher cloud started to drift in again and the sunlight started to fade so I quickly swapped to the views to the North to capture the other breathtaking views of Cul Mor and the iconic peak of Suilven, by this time the cloud had pretty much shrouded the sun but some fleeting side lighting still dappled the amzing scenery to the North of Assynt.

In total I probably spent around 3hrs on Stac Pollaich summit, some times spent waiting for the rain to stop, time watching the rising sun drench the mountain landscape in a stunning warm glow and then the last hour or so waiting for the fleeting glimpses of light on Cul Mor and Suilven. What an amazing morning on what’s surely one of the best mountain peaks for views in Scotland, all the more special as the summit was mine alone for the entire time…. not something that’s likely in the summer months I’m guessing!

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