The Trotternish Ridge

Sunday 1st July 2007

This was one of those days when a little more thought would have left me doing something completely different. I arrived at the youth hostel in the evening completely worn out and exhausted. I could hardly stand, and I have no idea how I managed to get up the steep road to the hostel. The next day started very differently; after early rain the skies had cleared and the sun was shining warmly. It was a glorious day and I was on the Isle of Skye, home to some of the most challenging mountains in Britain, but first I wanted to walk along the Trotternish Ridge. I had spent the night at the Armadale Youth Hostel, near the ferry terminal and caught the first bus of the day (at 9.40) all the way to Portree, the capital of Skye, and after stocking up on groceries I headed north out of the town on the Staffin road, but after a while I left the road to head up the hillside, and that was where my problems started.

With hindsight I should have stayed on the road for six miles until I was directly below the spectacular Storr, which would have saved myself a bundle of time. However, it would have been even better to have not done the walk at all, or at the least to have done the walk on a day when the buses were running on the Staffin Road so I wouldn't have had to walk all that way. As it was I trudged through boggy ground all the way up the southern slopes of the Trotternish ridge up (and down) Ben Dearg until finally I reached the top of the Storr. It had taken me almost five hours to get up there and as soon as I got there the clouds enveloped it and I was unable to see anything. Having taken me so long to get to the Storr I didn't want to prolong the walk by continuing along the ridge, but I had no choice. There were no many buses running in this part of Skye because it was a Sunday, so I was stuck in the middle of Skye with no way of getting to Uig except by walking.

So that is what I did; I dropped down to the bealach and up Hartaval, the second Graham on the ridge, and proceeded down to the next bealach. That was when it started raining and since by now I was really tired I decided to walk around Sgurr a' Mhalaidh, which was a big mistake because it is very wide and it took me a long time to get to the next bealach over terrain that was very difficult to walk over. I looked at my map many times to see if there was an easier way to the road, but the planned route always seemed best so I dragged myself over Creag a'Lain and Flasvein until finally I reached Bealach Chaiplin, which is where I had been aiming for. Skirting below Groba nan Each I crossed over its western ridge and dropped down into the valley looking for a farmer's track to take me back to civilization. After acquiring two wet feet from the boggy valley floor I finally reached a farmer's track which left me with many more miles of walking along the track and later on a road out of the valley and to the youth hostel. After this I just wished the rest of the week was going to be easier.