Thursday May 6th : The Old Man of Storr and The Quiraing

From Glenbrittle YH it was a 45 minutes drive to the the parking near The Old Man of Storr. This day meant new territory for me. I had never been here before but had seen it several times from the summits of the Black Cuillin. Low clouds shrouded the rockformations of the Trotternish peninsula. We started walking and soon came out of the little forest underneath The Old Man. The man himself wasn't visible although we were right beneath the rock itself. Visibility was down to 20 yards, sometimes less. Quiet. And spooky.
My son and I soon went into the labyrinth behind the Old Man and Needle Rock, despite a sign saying not to proceed because of possible rockfall. We're Dutch so we proceeded.

Routefinding didn't proof difficult despite the mist and rockfall didn't occur. We enjoyed this mysterious world of strange formed rockformations in a silent white world. As we reached the southwestern end of the corrie, after some tricky bits of path, the clouds had risen and were slowly resolving. We walked along the edge of the forest back to the main path. Tourists were already gathering in the sunshine to take the obligatory photograph with The Old Man in the background. The carpark had completely filled up. Our next destination was to be The Quiraing.

We parked near the graveyard and walked upto The Prison and soon passed the Needle and The Table. We abanded the idea of climbing upto The Table, a large flattopped rock big enough to play a footballmatch. Too much loose scree would drain our energy in the by now warm afternoon.

We returned to our car via a path leading to the viewpoint and massive carpark at NG 440 679. The views towards Staffin and onwards to the mainland are indeed grand.