With the great weather continuing and it being a rare occurrence in these parts, I decided to do an unusual thing and book a day off work in the middle of the week to take an early morning trip to Stac Pollaidh for a sunrise photo shoot. The mountain is about 1.5 hours travel from home, north up past Ullapool.

When I say ‘early morning’ more like night trip, the alarm was set for 3.00am and I was on the road around 3.30am! A bit, well, very tough on the sleep routine, but I thought the effort was worthwhile after seeing the potential for sunrise shoots at that location on a YouTube channel (Scotland’s Mountains). It’s worth googling the video to check it out (‘A Wild Camp on Stac Pollaidh’), totally amazing experience.

The aim was to arrive at least an hour before sunrise, to give myself a chance of getting to the top before the sun peaked about the horizon. This was relying on making the relatively short, but steep hike in well under an hour.

The dawn light was already breaking by my arrival, with the shadowy figures of the mountains appearing from under their cloak of darkness and stars still twinkling in the sky. There wasn’t much cloud around, so I was not going to see a gorgeous fiery sunrise on this visit unfortunately.

The second photo below was the view of Stac Pollaidh from where the car was parked - the photo doesn’t convey the ominous size of this lump of rock that grabs the attention from the car park.

After taking a few photos, it was on with the rucksack, strapping on the camera bag harness on the front of me so I could accommodate an extra lens in the rucksack, grabbing the hiking poles and we were off …

Within moments of crossing the road and through the gate you are straight into an uphill climb. It was on an empty stomach this time, too early to eat - food would have to wait until the top for a protein energy bar! But on this occasion thankfully I was feeling fitter than the previous Saturday’s hike up Bha’ach Ard. This one was going to be a lot shorter in distance.

Despite the time needed for getting to the top before the sun came up, I stopped to take a few photos as the ascent quickly took you up to fantastic views down over the loch beneath. The moon was still out lighting one part of the sky while the encroaching dawn lit up the other side:

I continued to press on at a brisk rate. Very conscious of the clock ticking and really wanting to make the top before the sun showed itself - I didn’t want to waste the 3.00am rise! The steep uphill climb continued with a few gentler inclines thrown in, enabling the legs to get some respite. In the process I overshot the intended main ascent track up the side of the ‘rock’ and ended up around the north side, facing a steep path up to the eastern summit. I was a little unsure about tackling this, but in the end with time against me I decided not to retrace my steps. Thankfully it didn’t turn out as bad or as exposed as I expected.

The top was reached in 48 minutes from starting the Garmin app (including stops for photos) and I arrived moments before the sun rose - initially just a ray of light from the sun vertically rising above the haze/clouds on the horizon:

The panoramic view from the top was totally amazing - lochs, waterways, mountains breaking up the horizon left and right - it really was an ‘on the top of the world’ type of feeling:

Then the sun rose…

As it rose higher the surrounding landscape started to light up.

Soon however, the cloud rolled in with a consequent significant change in the atmosphere:

After about 1hr40mins on the top and taking many dozens of photos, it was time to pack up and head down, leaving the cairn behind and tracing my steps back long the path I came up.

I hadn’t really focussed on some of the views on the way up (around the north side of the mountain) so I stopped a few times to get some record shots.

Including a view back to the Stac, lower down the path!

And a panoramic…

Once back to the car, it was time to give Willow a stretch of her legs as the mountain would not have been suitable for her at the top with her mindless charging around! I took the chance to get a few more photos of where I’d been and the surrounding view from the loch.

Before heading home, I saw on the OS map a viewpoint back up the A-road from Ullapool, so took a diversion and glad I did. As well as a great distant view of Stac Pollaidh, there was some moments of stillness on the roadside loch with great reflections.