others ‘Skye fever’. Perhaps it has something to do with the elfin lore that pervades this island of mist, or the invigorating purity of the air, or the clarity of its light, or the wealth of legend, or simply the indelible imprint Skye makes on an open and receptive mind.
Your passage and presence across the Skye landscape, a long-established feature of access in Scotland generally, is matched by a kindness and understanding from those who own the land, and those who use it to produce a living. Proper and responsible appreciation of that kindness and understanding will not go unrewarded.
To everyone who ventures on to Skye in search of the rewards I have found, I wish you well and many hours of enjoyment that I know will flow from your quest. Maintain your faith with Skye, and Skye will keep its faith with you.
Preface to the Fourth Edition
I have been visiting Skye since 1968, and many years have gone by since the first edition of this book was published in 1996; in the meantime I have returned to Skye only to carry out interim revisions, to check that everything was where I’d left it. Other work has taken me across the world, but it is with great anticipation that I return to Skye to work on new editions; it is like coming home. In intervening years many of the forest plantations on Skye mature or are felled or are in the process of felling. There are a few places where this may alter or temporarily suspend some routes.
Whatever is said of Skye, it remains, and always will be, a most remarkable place, a land of passion, legend, pride and loyalties. For the walker, especially one who may never have ventured here before, it is a land of wonderment, of diverse and inspirational landscapes, of amazing views and massive skies.
Bla Bheinn across Loch Slapin (Walks 2.5 and 2.6)
INTRODUCTION
Lovest thou mountains great,
Peaks to the clouds that soar,
Corrie and fell where eagles dwell,
And cataracts dash evermore?
Lovest thou green grassy glades,
By the sunshine sweetly kist,
Murmuring waves and echoing caves?
Then go to the Isle of Mist!
Bla Bheinn group from Strath Suardal (Walks 2.5 and 2.6)
Described by the then Duke of York (later King George VI) during a visit in 1933, as ‘the isle of kind and loyal hearts’, Eilean a’Cheo, the Isle of Mist, is second in size only to the Isle of Lewis in the Outer Hebrides. It is known also as An t-Eilean Sgiathanach, the Winged Isle, because it can be viewed as a mighty bird with outstretched pinions, coming in to land, or to seize upon prey. Such has been the influence of Skye on the senses of visitors since the first tourists came to the Island that it has also assumed other names, all equally valid: the Isle of Enchantment, the Isle of Mystery, the Isle of Fantasy. To the Islanders, it is simply the Island, with a capital ‘I’, one of many islands; but to those for whom the Island is home, there is no comparison, no equal, no thought even that there might be.
By raven, Skye extends 78km (49 miles) from Rubha Hunish to the Point of Sleat, and if you travelled in a straight line overland from east to west you would cover 43km (27 miles). Yet such is the irregularity of the Island’s coastline, probed by many fjord-like lochs, that you are rarely far from the sea, and never more than 8km (5 miles).
One of the earliest descriptions of Skye appeared in 1549, when Dean Munro wrote: ‘The iyle is callit by the Erishe, Ellan Skyane, that is to say in English, the Wingitt ile, be reason it has maney wings and points lyand furth frae it through the devyding of thir lochs.’
The original derivation of the Island’s name is lost, but many hold that it comes from Sgiath, the Norwegian for ‘wing’, while others contend it derives from another Norwegian word ‘ski’, meaning a mist, hence ‘The Misty Isle’.
Setting aside these fundamental controversies of nomenclature, which merely serve to spark the flame of Skye’s inordinate appeal, the Island is the most popular of all islands among tourists, mountaineers and walkers: botanists, photographers, natural history observers, too, find endless fascination within the bounds of Skye’s ragged coastline.
The Coral Beach (Walk 4.11)
Visiting walkers inevitably head for the Black Cuillin, unquestionably the most magnificent mountain group in Britain, yet there is so much more to Skye, and walking places, coastal and inland, are a perfect balance to the weight of the Cuillin. The most obvious of all the mountains on the Island are the Red Hills since the main road across the Island skirts around them. Once these are passed, however, you come into view of the Black Cuillin, a stark, jagged skyline that boldly impresses itself on the memory, yet when the cloud is down, they can be missed altogether. The contrast between the two Cuillin is remarkable: from a distance the Black Cuillin look like just one elongated mountain with a serrated edge, a badly formed saw, if you like. The Red Cuillin, on the other hand, are smooth-sided, generally singular and distinctive mountains. There is no danger of mistaking the two.
The Island can be compartmentalised, as it has for this guide, into districts. Most southerly is Sleat, though this is strictly an old parish name. Sleat abuts Strath, which extends northwards and west to the major promontories of the Island – Minginish (which embraces the Cuillin), Duirinish, Waternish and Trotternish. The ‘nish’ ending is of Norse derivation, and means promontory.
The Red Hills and the Cuillin Outliers lie within Strath, and more specifically a smaller promontory, owned by the John Muir Trust, Strathaird. Beyond the Cuillin and the Red Hills the highest peaks are close to Kyleakin, overlooking the mainland, while the most impressive form the long ridge of Trotternish.
Elsewhere, abundant walking opportunity exists in all the main headlands and around the magnificent coastline; indeed the walk around the Duirinish coastline has few equals in Britain. It is part of Skye’s appeal that each of these districts provides walking markedly different from its neighbours, which in sum, and in its own way, is every bit as satisfying as the Cuillin, Red or Black.
Walkers who combine the pleasure of physical exercise with an interest in flora and fauna, or in the history, culture and folklore of island communities, will simply be spoiled for choice; there is nowhere on the Island that does not reward one’s attention. As the poet Sorley MacLean wrote: ‘a jewel-like island, love of my people, delight of their eyes’.
History
The history of Skye is quite simply a fascinating and time-consuming interest, and is nowhere better explained than in the immense and awe-inspiring detail of Alexander Nicolson’s History of Skye. That is the work to consult: what follows here is, by comparison, a mere crumb from the table of this absorbing topic.
Wherever you go on Skye you will encounter structural relics, ruins of houses, forts, tombs, and so on. The Island is almost littered with chambered cairns, hillforts, duns, brochs, hut circles, souterrains and Pictish stones, all, virtually without exception, dotted along the Island’s tortured coastline. These are all that remain to tell us about the history of man on Skye before the days of the written word, and many of them date back more than 6000 years.
