As I emerged from the airport into Highlands Scotland, I was roused by the wind. Paul (Pablo is his trekking nickname) and I had been traveling a night and day to get here to begin one of our hikes in unfamiliar territory. My brother and I had paid for the privilege of climbing untracked hills built of ancient rock, covered by heather and peat bogs, and strewn with boulders. I was quite underdressed in shorts and a shirt. The wind was bracing and had a certain tang; it could have been peat smoke but it may have been my imagination.
Inverness is a sparkling clean city of about 100,000. The stout houses are built of stone with peaked roofs and large windows, featuring walled gardens in front rather than lawns. The city is built on the river Ness, a few miles downstream of the famous Loch and just as the river opens into the Moray Firth. We found some good walking along its banks, where there a park leads to footbridges onto little islands in the middle of the river. Gail and Andy Gillon, our hosts at the Georgian House, were warm and friendly, like the rest of the Scots we met during our visit. Gail cooked us our first Scot’s breakfast, a hearty meal of one egg, ham, sausage, Naan bread, baked tomato and black pudding (something akin to scrapple, though quite different in flavor). They had a little piano in the sitting room that Gail allowed me to play. She had me play a piece by Pachabel, and rewarded me with a tiny bottle of Scotch.
We met our guide, Ian Thow, at the Inverness train station the day after our arrival. Ian is a wall climber who has climbed every “Munro” (a mountain over 3000 feet) in Great Britain. A small, wiry Englishman with careless hair and a quick gait, he entertained us immensely with his stories and wit. He also taught us a great deal about the geography, history, and geology of the Highlands.
Our first two days were in Ullapool, on Loch Broom, on the western coast of Scotland. We hiked along a cliff- walled coastline with spectacular views out to the Summer Islands in the Minch, the section of the Atlantic between mainland Scotland and the islands. Both of these were easy walks over mostly flat, open ground. We stopped for a rest in the ruins of an ancient village, abandoned during the Highland clearances in the early 18th century. Imagining this small collection of squat rock houses as it was then, it seemed a lonely and remote place to live. I did see who currently inhabits most of the highlands: sheep. They are virtually everywhere: along every hill, in every pasture, in the lanes and roads, and in even less probable places. Some driveways have sheep grates (an abyss for hooves, a rumble strip for tires) to keep the roving ruminants out.
Both Paul and I realized we had overestimated the challenge level of the itinerary, and Ian was happy to change the hikes so they featured more climbing. In this we were lucky to have such a small group, a great guide who could adjust, and wonderful country to hike in that offered a plethora of opportunities. The rest of the trip was improvised the night before each hike, with Ian providing us our options.
We climbed Beinn Ghobhlachen (Forked Mount), on the shore of Little Loch Broom the next morning. As soon as we left the van we began climbing a steep hill, all heather and bog, but with rocks and holes, so careful stepping was necessary. Pablo, who has an aversion to keeping to trails anyway, was quite happy with the trail-less climbing. He and Ian had to wait for me several times on the way up, a pattern that would continue for the rest of the week. By the time we were gaining the summit, the wind had picked up to a strong 40 to 60 mph. The view from the top was magnificent. We toasted our first Scottish hill in a stone windbreak on the summit with the last of a bottle of wine Pablo had smuggled out of the restaurant where we’d had dinner the night before. The lovely waitress had winked, “Just take it under your coat.”
We made a stop during the drive south at Inverwe Gardens, an amazing place first founded by Laird Osgood MacKenzie, the 12th laird and chief of the clan, in the early 20th century. This region of Scotland falls on the 58th parallel, the same latitude as Moscow or upper Labrador in North America, but because of the warmth created by the Gulf Stream in the Atlantic, there is never a frost. There were an enormous variety of plants in this expansive set of gardens, including palm trees and other lower latitude dwellers and dozens of varieties of rhododendron. The champion for me was a strange plant with humongous leaves resembling a gigantic cabbage.
In Gairloch we were at the Sheildaig Lodge, a huge Victorian hunting estate owned by, of course, Laird MacKenzie. The premises are leased to a very eccentric Dutchman who runs the inn with his wife.
We hiked up to a little waterfall called Flowerdale falls, all on land originally owned by the MacKenzies, but now a part of the national trust. It is being reforested in the native timber: Scots Pine, Alder, Ash, Oak and Sycamore, but still looks like a clear-cut valley. Then we went off trail again and began to climb An Grobam, a smallish but very scenic hill. Towards the top, Ian and Pablo got into some great rock climbing. I kept to the heather for the most part, but did do a little wall climbing towards the very top. Fifteen feet up the wall, I had second thoughts, but with Ian’s patient coaching I was able to make the last few moves and meet both he and Pablo on the summit. There was much rejoicing.
The next day we climbed a hill called Sidhean Mor, which was mostly a bog with a little hillock at the top. There is a World War II crash site there. A B-29 that was returning to the states with a load of soldiers who had survived the war hit the top of a mountain a few dozen miles from here in bad weather. The pilot, it is assumed, was attempting to ditch in the Loch just beyond this little hill, but couldn’t make it. He was 22 years old. There is a simple memorial built into the rock with the names of the crew and passengers, and the bleached aluminum litter is left scattered over the rocks as a part of it.
On the way out to the Isle of Skye, we stopped at the Eilean Donan Castle, on an islet in Loch Duich. This was a MacKenzie castle first built in the 12th century as a defense against Norse invaders. It was a dark, moody day and the castle appeared exactly I had pictured “a Scottish Castle”. In fact, it was used as a Hollywood set for the series of “Highlander” movies.
Skye was even more striking than the mainland. Completely covered with mountains, both the Red and formidable Black Cuillins, the island never tapers; it just runs out of space and smashes into the Atlantic ocean in a fjordal coastline of thousand foot basalt cliffs. We stayed in a comfortable inn on a windswept peninsula in the village of Struan.
Our first hike on Skye was a soggy one, along the windy coast atop the cliffs, with a great view of the Atlantic and a very picturesque lighthouse at Neist Point. The views could have been spectacular, but the mist and rain kept us pretty well socked in for most of the morning. We spent the afternoon in Port Righ, the quaint capital, shopping for souvenirs.
The next day, we got into some serious mountain climbing in the Black Cuillins. We did two Munros in one long hike, climbing Bruach na Frithe (3142) and Squrr na Gilean (3167). Both were very rough, craggy peaks of basalt and other volcanic rock. All week we had been pushing Ian to up the challenge, and this day he certainly gave us all we could handle. Pablo and I learned the difference between what a rock wall-climber means by “hard scrambling” and what a couple of hikers think it means. I realized we were really in it when, as we edged around the side of a cliff with about 400 feet of direct exposure, we came upon a couple of climbers with ropes and helmets and such.
We had a great lunch on the summit. The descent was just as challenging, with huge scree fields to negotiate. Scree, Pablo will tell you, is a four-letter word in my vocabulary. There is no faster way to blister your feet, make your legs quiver and knees ache, than to spend a few hours picking your way down through a scree field. But there was a nice little reward, the hike leads right down to Seamus’s pub, where we had a few celebratory pints and toasted our guide and our first two Cuillins. He had certainly saved the best for last.
Our trip seemed to be over just as it had started, which I think is the mark of a successful vacation. I could see returning here some day, spending more time on Skye, and gaining a few more Munros. Perhaps next time I’ll get the opportunity to try some haggis.