The Skye Trail

So I'm pretty sure my serious travel-blogging days are behind me. Definitely long gone are the frantic runs through dusty Zambian villages, trying to catch the rapidly departing truck, after tracking down a rumoured one-room netcafe with a couple of 386es with 28.8 modems, to squirt the prior day's photos and reflections out on the wire… Gone too, perhaps, are the days of spending a week or two writing up trips in exhaustive detail, a year after the fact…

In fact, on this one, I didn't even take a camera – though, in fairness, a phone is about as good these days – and genuinely didn't make note one in my notebook, nor ever even took it out of my bag. (I can hear Tim and Mark yodelling in rage: “And we missed this!!?”) This was all probably part of my current project to try to experience life a bit more, while chronicling it a bit less (whilst also focusing on writing that will be a bit more enduring, not to mention pay the ole rent).

But, along the way, on this one, I did toss the day's best photos up onto our de facto public commons, mainly because it's so easy to do. I'm taking the time now to rescue them from that walled garden, not least because I'm laid up with some fell lower respiratory infection, which is exacting the usual price of a lost week of life (or at least productivity), all for the offence of touching the wrong door handle. Anyway, forthwith, probably the best photos, and a tiny bit of commentary, from our Skye Trail trek of last month.

The Skye Trail is a challenging, unofficial – i.e. un-waymarked – long-distance (128km) route, aimed at experienced hillwalkers, which takes in some of the finest landscapes on the celebrated Isle of Skye, and indeed in the whole of the UK. Skye itself, I can report – aside from let's call it a little challenging to get to, and from – is just absurdly beautiful; and its people are beyond ridiculously lovely and kind. Oh, the stories I could tell. As it is, you'll just have to have a pint with me and hear them in person. (Okay, maybe just the one: a single one of the keepers of B&Bs we stayed in:

• drove us into the nearest thing like, well, anything, so we could get dinner, the night of our arrival;
• picked us up again when we were done;
• drove us 8.5 miles back down the coast to the trailhead in the morning (as there was nothing remotely like a place to stay between the two trek segments);
• when she found out we were booked at the one (very posh) restaurant at our next stopping point, informed us that they were badly overpriced and the portions tiny, and so made me a butternut-squash-and-chickpea curry – with rice – to take with me for the next night.

On with the show.

Day 0: London → Broadford, Isle of Skye
(via Edinburgh, Inverness, and Kyle of Lochalsh…)

These were just taken from the train – trains!, lots of them – but the views grew progressively lovelier.

Day 1: 20km Broadford → Torrin
(lodging at Skye Hobbit House!)

Day 2: 18km Torrin → Elgol

Day 3: The Dicing with Death / Deathmarch Day
21km Elgol → Sligachan
Via the "Bad Step" Alternative Route

The name probably should have been our first clue. Basically, by the combination of a badly timed injury, unexpectedly dodgy terrain, and slightly sketchy planning that gets so many people dead, we almost stumbled into a bit of danger. Because I'm a genius with impeccable timing, I managed to roll my ankle (usual method of falling off the back doing flower or sheep photo-portraiture or some such, rushing to catch up, then wildly overestimating the flatness of the rock at bottom of a two-foot hop down) right before the Bad Step. Normally, a rolled ankle is not a trip-killer, as long as you take care to protect it a while. But because the Step was substantially dodgier than we'd been led to expect, I had to focus on not dying, the ankle be damned. Then we had a surprise 400m brutal ascent – due to a slight misreading of 15m elevation lines on the map as 5m lines – followed by an unforgiving descent, both on shifting rock scree that kept reinjuring the ankle. If it had got to the point where I couldn't put weight on it (and/or if the weather had turned on us, which it usually does around here), we would have been in a mountain rescue situation. As it was, we got down safely, then had a multi-hour death march through a long valley to get back to civilisation. (But, hey, what trek ever had a day without an endless day-ending death march?)

[Andrew – not to mention his loved ones – will appreciate me noting the above is dramatized somewhat for effect. We were never in any real danger - certainly, he never was. ]

Day 4: The Long Amble Down an Absurdly Idyllic Country Road in Yet More Implausibly (for Skye) Perfect Weather
18km Sligachan → Portree

Day 5: The Lovely and Vertiginous Traverse of 400m Sheer Cliffsides Day
14km Portree → The Storr

With Bonus King of the Highlands.

Day 6: TROTTERNISH RIDGE
30.5km (with 1.75km total ascent)
Old Man of the Storr → Flodigarry

This was definitely where the rubber met the Skye Trail – a crushing series of unrelenting ascents (and, equally murderous on the knees, descents) of six sections of ridge line, all of it accompanied by the kinds of views (and kind of feeling) you can't get any other way. I was worried about this one because the whole segment is remote and exposed with few escape routes – another injury, or bad turn of the weather (we were sure due for one), would have been problematical. In the end, it all went perfectly – thanks mainly to Ames's godlike map- and terrain-reading skills (I've decided his superhero name is Dead Reckoning!) – and instead I should have been worried about the steep, sustained climbs and the mileage. (I was trying to think if I've ever done a trekking day with both that much distance and that much elevation change. Pretty sure the answer is no. Maybe the pass-crossing days in Nepal – but maybe not.) When we finally got in, nine hours later, I'd sworn off ever walking anywhere again, never mind going up another mountain. Then again, I've made that promise before. And it's amazing how quickly the body recovers with a great deal of food, booze, and sleep.

(Also worth adding that not only was I the only one worried about this segment, I was also the only one crushed by it – my other nickname for Ames is The Pack Horse: however heavy the load, however murderous the terrain, he just keeps hauling, at a rather brisk pace…)

Day 7: The Gentle Meander Up to the Northern Tip of the Island to Finish the Trek Day
11.5km Flodigarry → Rubha Hunish

Bonus Getting-Way-Too-Close-to-the-Highland-Cattle Photo:

I did a fair bit of research, and we definitely learned a lot along the way, so if you have questions about the Skye Trail, by all means get in touch.