All Things Scottish, Days 13-14

A lot of time spent moving around over the last few days, first running around the Isle of Skye, then over to Inverness for the night, then down to Glasgow for a Monday flight over to the west end of the British Isles, the Isle of Barra.

Skye truly is a spectacular place -- at least distinct parts of it are. The eastern end, where you arrive by road or by ferry, has the Red Hills which are prominent and uniform conical mountains, made of a distinctive red granite. The southern end is the Cuillin "Hills", which are jagged Rockies-esque shattered mountains of dark granite. The north end is dominated by an erroded uplift/landslip ridge that exposes shattered layers of rocks, crags, and other geologic features without trying being "mountains".

The middle part, roughly encompasing Portree to Broadford (where I was staying for three consecutive nights) is rolling midland hills consisting mainly of farming and timber operations. There are bays and lochs intruding here and there, as well as significant "hills", but only the cardinal points of the island are of the rugged style for which the isle is famous.

The weather held out very well for the three days, so much time was spent hill-walking. First, almost an entire day was spent in that jagged north section, the Quiraing (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Quiraing) and the Storr area. On Sunday, time was spent at the far southern end, rushing first to Elgol to catch some early morning photo ops, then to Glen Brittle for some actual hiking up into the hills.

The Cuillin hills are very peculiar. Approach them from the north down the single track to Glen Brittle, there are views that could be taken straight out of the approach from Calgary to the Canadian Rockies: rolling lower hills with exposed rangeland, a middle band of conifer forests, and an upper layer of craggy, shattered jagged grey mountains. Except in this case the top peaks are under 1000M.

So it's a bit deceptive to have a "Rockies" perspective and realize that a hike from the ocean, that's only 3KM long and 500M in elevation gain, gets you half way up the mountains. On these hikes, that's where "normal ability" gets you, and the trails beyond led up to knife-edge walks and quasi-vertical scrambling. Being alone and with a bum knee, I stopped short of where on a more daring day I would love to have ventured.

To finish off the stay in Skye, I had booked a night near Inverness, allowing a scenic drive up along the northern highlands. Unfortunately, the weather did not cooperate, so there wasn't much to see. In the end I arrived mid-evening to my room, the smallest wee room on this trip (I would say "so far" but I'm pretty sure it can't be topped) -- a 8x5 foor room with a single bed, and a 3x5 foot ajoining ensuite bathroom. If it weren't for the comfort and the free wifi, I would think it perhaps a "Minimum Security" type abode...