Scotland 10 - Quiraing and Cursed Standing Stones

 Day 9? [Nope, it's 10]:

Today is Kuerig and Storr! (I'm gonna fix it to [Quiraing], but just know when I wrote this I wrote kuerig the whole time.) We all woke up early (to screaming), packed food, and loaded up both vans to hike Quiraing. Last night we (we meaning Adam and Ethan) planned out a route after consulting five  different trail-mapping apps, and came up with a great through-hike plan taking advantage of our vans. Rolling out, we cut east across the island on a very rough single-track ("Warning: Road may be Impassible in Certain Conditions"), arriving at the upper trail-head before normal people had their morning cuppa. There, everyone unloaded from the vans and set off across the mountain. Everyone except for my Dad and I, who followed me in the second van while I absolutely bombed it down the single track to a wide shoulder on the east coast. There we left one van and sprinted back up the mountain to the trail-head. After triple-checking that we had all three sets of keys, we set off across the trail to catch up with the family, who were planning on starting slow, maybe letting Sagey walk for some of it.

Quiraing is amazing. Our first steps out of the carpark offered incredible cliffs left and right, while the ocean spread out afore, and as we left all signs of habitation behind the views continued to improve. I've said it before, but the landscape doesn't look real. It looks like something out of a fantasy movie where you'd say "earth doesn't do that" - but when massaged by centuries of sheep and man, apparently it can.  Speaking of, we passed several sheep on the trail, though thankfully their offerings were fewer and further between than the last few hikes...   Half an hour in - wondering if our family had forgotten the "take it slow and wait for the carkeys" part - we rounded a bend and saw them chilling in a slopey-meadow-thing! (Is there a word for that? [A corrie.]) They'd stopped for diapers/snacks/a peepee behind a rock!  We exchanged updates and shared our mutual shock at how breathtaking this trail was.  And then just as soon as we were reunited, I split off again, opting for a sheep-trail over a upthrust while they took the trail beneath and around the spur. 

Stepping off the beaten trail - and then out-of-sight of the beaten trail - elevated the otherworldly beauty to a sublime level. All the gorgeous cliffs and views, but you can't help but imagine you're in an age before man - assuming you can ignore the ear-tags on the sheep that hang out in these blind glens. I spent a few quiet minutes waiting for the family to traverse the longer route, just idling alongside the livestock. Soon enough some familiar faces rounded the crag, and I headed down to rejoin the clan for a group selfie.

The next mile was more of the blessed same. Incredible views, easy hiking, great rocks, this might be the best trail I've ever hiked - Via Ferreta is the other contender, but that's comparing apples and ordnance.  In terms of sheer aesthetic pleasure..... 

Eventually we had to hike up through a saddle, which was a bit too athletic to be sheer pleasure, but the views remained viscerally majestic. From there we continued across the face and up to a stone-walled pasture perched atop this massif. Half way through the meadow, however, my brother yelled at us to stop. We regrouped and started checking all the map-apps again. We'd missed our turnoff, and were now on a side trail that lead up to a lookout - a bit more elevation than we really wanted. I recalled a turnoff just after the saddle, so we started picking sheep-trails to shortcut back to the turnoff... Adam finally made it back to the stone wall and realized these trails ended in cliffs, so we sheep-trailed our way back to the main artery, resigned to backtracking a bit.

This is where the joy of the hike muted, and fell back into the grind. We had a mile to do, all downhill (thankfully), but the babies were done with it, the squad stretched out, and it was all-eyes on the goal. I loitered back with my parents to offer a company and an occasional hand so the pace wasn't terrible, but it was still a slog.  Around every bend we expected to see the carpark, and we always saw one more curve. But we kept approaching the sea, so we knew it couldn't remain eternally one corner away. Finally we saw the road at the bottom. One last push up a berm, and huzzah! A black Benz in a lay-by!

We feasted. Bread, peanut butter, clementines, crisps, luke-cold pizza - objectively mundane but it felt like the meal of champions, the most delicious fruit I've ever tasted. Recharged and in much better spirits, we loaded all 10 of us into a 9 passenger van (Ada loved getting to ride on a lap) and headed back up the mountain to the other van. This time we did not bomb. We slowly slunk through the train of noobs making a mess of single-track and failing to understand passing zones. 

Up top, we split into two vans. Adam and Dani still wanted to do Storr, and the rest of us felt no need to tackle another hike. I drove the second van, and we headed back down the noob-zone single-track so Ethan and Hannah could see yesterday's waterfall, just a few miles east. This was a mistake. We could have bailed west and looped the island in the time it took to get through the first mile of noobtown. The Peugeot ("Peu-GO GO GO PLEASE GO PLEASEEEE GO") in front of us was terrified to put a wheel in the gravel even at walking pace, and I had to bully him down the entire mountain. That said, he at least went. There was one dude who was just stopped in the road - half a dozen cars reversing to wide spots on both sides as he got out of the car and started looking around. After 5 minutes I offered to pass the wheel to my mom - Ethan and I would go push his car off whatever rock he'd hit - but the woman in front of us put her car in park, and started marching down the mountain berating him. He jumped in his car and drove away.  You're #2 on my list. Not as bad as the jobsworth at Castle Stryker, but it's a near thing.

Off the mountain, the rest of the drive to the Mealt Falls was dead easy. We parked, jumped out, and checked out the falls (and Brother's point, yesterday's midday hike) quick as you like - it's still a very meh view of a very cool waterfall. And with that done and dusted, we boogied on home.

We got home around 2.30, didn't really feel recovered until 3.30, naps lasted until 4, and dinner was at 5.... so it was just a very chill afternoon without any major "thing".  Adam and Dani got home with their report on Storr ("we jogged the shorter loop - ok views, too many people, not nearly as cool as Kuerig"), and my dad had a very different report ("Got a hot chocolate at the Storr-store, played with grandbabies in the parkinglot, it was fantastic"), and then we attempted to eat all our leftovers for dinner, with decent success.

I just wanted to post another Keurig picture

Tomorrow, we head across all of Scotland to the eastern edge via Loch Ness and the Caigherhorns  [Cairngorms]. Honestly, I would spend another week in Skye - every hike is gorgeous, whether it's a world-class banger like Kuerig or a rando goat-trail behind some carpark. There's every chance Stonehaven is just as amazing though, and only one way to find out. 

11k steps for the day.

...

Actually, Scotch that. I've still got miles in these legs and hours before a chance of sleep, time for a bonus adventure! So after finishing up my blog, I loaded up my camera gear and set off for the standing stones about a mile up the road, on the shore of the saltwater loch. Are these ancient? Don't know. Will they look good in a long-exposure photograph? Also don't know, but we're gonna find out!

It's a totally moon-less night with no city-glow, so it's ridiculously dark, but 90% of the hike is on sidewalks so that's just a fun twist. I did have to use my phone flashlight to cross the fence/ferns/wall and into the pasture.  Even this close, it was too dark to see the stones, so I checked the GPS for a final hint.  And I found them! 4-5 feet tall, definitely stones, definitely standing.  I set up my tripod, propped my cellphone on a monolith to pull focus, and dialed in some basic astrophotography settings. It was ok.. I tweaked the settings, and experimented with light-painting the stones to balance the exposure - settling on running back from the camera and giving the stones a single slash with the flashlight. I got a handful of pics that look gorgeous on the back of the camera, we'll see if they're as good fullsized, but great success! I packed up, tromped back across the field, jumped the fences, and trudged back to the house. 

As I neared the house, I realized the camera flap on my bag was wagging open. And more importantly... there was no camera in it. My heart sank, and I had to double check my sanity... Am I sure I had my camera? Yes, I used it. Am I sure I don't have it now? Yup, definitely not here. That's also half my pictures, with no backup. I never heard or felt it jump... Maybe it fell out hopping fences? 

So I walked the mile back to the monuments, and then searched the fenceline, the wall, walked the field multiple times, all with no sign of my black camera amongst the moonless night.  After 45 minutes I had to call it, having seen nothing but a rabbit. I continued to search entire hike home, but no luck.  So I set my alarm for 6am and hoped. 

18k steps for the day

[...]

[Imagine you're panicking and trying to fall asleep anyways]

[....]

[You have to fall asleep so you can wake up early]

[....]