Over Easter, we (Sue and I) took a trip to Scotland, in order to try our hand at backpacking in preparation for our summer holiday planned for the Canadian Rockies. After much deliberation of where to go and what to do, we settled on a trip to Skye. We arrived on Thursday night and camped at Glen Brittle, next to the famous Cuillin range. In order to reach Skye, we had to use the bridge. This was really against our principles but we arrived too late in the day to use the ferry. The following day, we abandoned the car on the parking area just outside the site and set off on a four day walk to the other side of the Cuillin, to the delightful location of Loch Coruisk. It is only 35 miles in total, but we realised that carrying the tent, food, coooking gear and clothing for all weathers would make it quite strenuous. For two people as unfit as us, that would be a big undertaking.

The first leg was to walk the 9.5 miles to the Sligachan Hotel, staying on the adjacent campsite. This proved an interesting exercise, the scenery was naturally dramatic, the clouds at one point making one of the hills resemble a smoking volcano! There were two river crossings to make, both involved stepping or jumping from one underwater stone to another, so we ended up with well wet feet before too long! The showers were frequent and often heavy, but abated during the afternoon. On the wildlife front, we saw and heard loads of meadow pippit, a few curlew and another wader which we think was a golden plover. Overhead, we heard an occasional shriek of buzzard. We had just dried out by the time we reached the site when guess what, it poured down as we were pitching the tent! The bedding stayed dry so despite most other things being damp, we had a good night's sleep. Apart from a small blister on one of my feet and extremely tender neck muscles from carrying fairly heavy rucksacks, we were in reasonable shape. The navigation was dead easy, the path from the Glen Brittle Road has been maintained well.

Day two of the trip dawned bright, breezy and clear, so everything apart from the tent and our woollen socks quickly dried out. The day was to be shorter in terms of mileage but more taxing in terms of height gain (and loss!). The tops of the Cuillin were out of the cloud from mid morning and so we had our best ever views on Skye. We could not believe our luck, previous trips had always been wet and cloudy, even in Summer. The path along Glen Sligachan was not how we remembered it from our first trip there, 18 or so years ago. It was, at that time, very boggy. Sue was miles behind me because I hate wet feet so I virtually ran through each boggy bit and would only stop on the dry patches! She was also quite slow because of the presence of two enormous blisters on her heels, something that was to be repeated on this trip! What is it about her feet and that Glen? The path has been repaired and is well defined and no longer boggy. OK it is not exactly dry either but at least you do not sink in above your boots any more. I guess this has happened because of the popularity of the walk through to both Loch Coruisk and Camasunary.

We were quite weary after a steep ascent followed by a steep and rocky descent to Loch Coruisk. After faffing around for a while, we found a superb and sheltered spot to pitch the tent on a small promontory by the Loch. Long after everyone else had headed back to civilisation, we had a brew and cooked our tea. We were actually surprised that there was no-one else staying there for the night, we guess that Camasunary, about 3 miles round the headland would be more populated, since there is a bothy (shelter) there.

Day three morning proved to be even better than day two. We lounged around for quite a time, eating onion bagels and cheese spread on Ryvita for breakfast, washed down with a cauliflower and broccoli cup soup, before striking camp and heading off back to the site at Sligachan, where we had spent the first night. Before leaving, I headed over the Scavaig river on the stepping stones to investigate the Coruisk Memorial hut and the landing stage. Last night, many of the stones had been underwater but the level had dropped by about six inches this morning. I secretly hoped that would be the case for the rivers on the first day - I still hate wet feet! The weather was so good until well into the afternoon, that we were able to walk in tee shirts. The main problem with this was finding room in our sacks for the fleeces and our waterproofs that we had been wearing on the first two days! The first 3 miles of the return journey were the best, the last 4 were a bit of a slog! This was not helped by Sue's worsening blisters, caused by having to wear a pair of wet socks. Anyway, it stayed more or less dry for pitching the tent. We decided that it was not cheating to utilise the nearby bar in order to sample the beers that are brewed on Skye and of course the malt whisky! Any rumours about us topping up our flagging food supplies by consuming vast quantities of crisps are completely untrue!

Day four was not so kind weather wise, but there were, nevertheless, some atmospheric views. The cold wind was at our back which made the continuous morning drizzle and intermittent heavier showers easier to bear. The weather improved during the afternoon. The water levels in the rivers had significantly dropped, making the river crossings a doddle in terms of dry feet. The final 3 road miles seemed a long way. After congratulating ourselves on our first backpacking holiday, we drove from Skye to a site on the mainland, where we tucked into yet another pasta meal but this time followed by copious quantities of Easter egg!