Trotternish Ridge and The Quiraing

July 29, 2010

We woke up to grey skies, cool temps. It didn't look windy, at least not in Portree, or in Scots Gaelic Port Righ, Port of the King. The large picture window in our room framed the harbor and all the weather-related and celestial sights beautifully, but the lure of yet another Scottish breakfast pulled me away from it.

Fran, Jessie, and I stayed at the Almondbank Guesthouse and it was lovely. As was our experience everywhere, our hostess was so friendly and curious about what we were going to see and where we were from in the US. I think that travelers in every country do expect a little adventure when it comes to the amenities and how to access them, though, and this guesthouse taught us something new.

It was my turn to shower first so I went to the shower and pushed the buttons to turn it on, but nothing. I called out to Fran to see if she was familiar with this type of shower and she wasn't, and we pushed every button to no avail. So she went into the hallway and knocked on a door marked "Private", thinking that the hostess would be there. No, but Jessie was in there, taking a shower! Her shower set-up was different, so Fran came back and fortunately she was able to think outside the box - and bathroom - and she located a switch on the wall that was labeled "Shower". Aha! She pressed that, it activated the power to the shower, and a hot shower was born! We also had the hottest towel rack in the universe (a lesson that only had to be learned once) which was really nice. On particularly messy days we would wash out clothes and drape them wherever we could, hopefully in a drying room. But it was nice when we had a heated towel rack because hiking shirts and pants could dry in a jiffy.

Portree from the guesthouse, Black Cuillins in the distance

Angela drove up and we embarked on the drive north to Trotternish Ridge, a 20 mile ridge that runs north/south and allows you amazing views of the hills of Wester Ross, the Cuillins, and the western isles http://website.lineone.net/~trotternish/walking.html We learned from her also that we would have "good weather", which translated meant that we would have no rain and the clouds would be above the hills! The car park had quite a few cars already, but we poured out of the van, put on the gaiters and waterproofs, loaded up on lunch goodies (hurray for Cadbury!), extended the poles, and off we went. I had to take a picture of this snack bar, though - in Washington State we used to have a public health insurance called "Healthy Options". Perhaps if we'd offered haggis, neeps, and tatties with the program it would have been more successful.



The path started off on a gentle, grassy slope. It was quite green with truly remarkable basalt structures along the path. These structures were caused by rapidly-cooling lava which erodes quickly, leaving behind incredible shapes. There were some sheep and Tom and I saw a bunch of cottontail bunnies running on the rocks below us.









This is the route we took up the Quiraing. It's probably about 100' elevation gain and we had to zigzag our way to the top. Every now and then I'd catch my foot on some unstable earth and would slip backwards a bit, but that didn't happen too often. It was a scramble at the top which I greatly enjoyed! http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Quiraing


We entered a little space that was a great hiding place, one of many for the Scots in the 17th and 18th centuries when keeping their cattle safe from the English. From here one could look down on the coast and see the community where Flora MacDonald lived out her final days and is buried http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Flora_MacDonald_(Scottish_Jacobite)

We exited this space via a narrow, steep passageway between large rocks, and it was the most fun scramble of all! Too short, I have to say. We wound around and up and and down and around many rock formations to finally climb up a short bit to The Table. This was a football field-sized flat area that held a commanding view of the area. This was also where many head of cattle were hidden for days at a time. I can only imagine the racket coming from the heavens as heard by the searching opposing forces. We had a nice lunch here and took several pictures, some goofy and fun.


There was one more leg to the hike, and that was to the closest summit at about 2500'. We were tired at this point. Making our way up some of the steep off-trail areas used alot of energy! Several of our group plopped down, put their hats over their eyes, and took a nap. We could see the Isles of Harris and Lewis clearly as well as the area near Gairloch where we'd been earlier.

the summit, Harris and Lewis in distance

at the top

We started the return to the van and it actually took longer than I thought it would take. Part of the reason was because the path was so muddy in places that you had to forge your own trail, and Rachel and I ended up going on our own expedition during the descent! Good conversation is a wonderful distraction. The hills look like they're covered with green velvet and the grass is actually quite soft, but heather is a little different story. We were very careful as we placed our poles and found our way down the hill. It's not like you could get lost on this treeless hillside, so it was easy to pay more attention to not wiping out!

Angela wanted us to see a beautiful rock of basalt columns and colorful sandstone, Kilt Rock. The columns look like pleats on a kilt. We were treated to a bagpiper busking at the entrance of the car park. Ah, Scotland! You do know how to keep the brain on vacation!

happy hikers
Portree Harbor from the main road - loved the orange boat

a bit of "family"Portree Harbor and Black Cuillins at sunset from the Cuillin Hotel

After yet another feast at the Cuillin Hotel - oh, the Fruits du Mer was the most amazing platter of seafood I've ever seen! - some of us went to a guesthouse to see Angela's amazing pictures of the Faroe Islands. I think that all of us wanted to pop on over for a view ourselves. It was fun to see what our guide liked to see and where she hiked, and they were great photos!

Then a walk down the quiet driveway and as we got to our guesthouse the moon started to rise over the harbor. Very pretty sight.

sunset from The Gables Guesthouse

moonrise over the harbor