It Wasn't Quite As Bad As The Terra Nova Expedition

I have always professed that the two best reasons to go backpacking are as follows: 1. To come home after backpacking and 2. To brag about how horrible it was.

Why do I keep on doing it? Is it because I'm a conceited, emulous pig and I want to be better at everything than everyone else?

mmmmmmmmm... yes

Day 4. Elgol Harbor. 8 am.

After another bitterly cold morning, we arrived at the harbor for our trip into Loch Coruisk and the Black Cullins. An older couple eventually joined us and we started sharing niceties. We eventually realized that the man (and 2nd wife?) was the father of the owner of the store that we had shopped in the day before. He had between 7-9 other children in the Highlands somewhere and he was on a grand tour. Some people get around... Eventually the boat crew arrived and we got our safety briefing, etc. We took the tour with Bella Jane. Now, on their website you'll see a picture of a nice big ol' blue boat. We assumed we would be taking that one into the Loch.

WRONG

We instead would be taking a RIB. Now, Merrie is absurdly afraid of water. This did not come as a very comforting realization. We played it cool and got on our weird saddle seats and braced for the ride. Fast-forward 30 minutes and we just had one of the coolest experiences of our lives. I do not have any videos or pictures while on board, but we were moving at quite a good clip. The water was spraying everywhere and the scenery was just crazy. Right before we landed there were seals, and seal pups, on a little island near us. It was a good time.

The RIB going away with the seal island on the left. It's difficult to see the scale of the Cullins, but I think this picture does a nice job.

Merrie infront of Sgurr na Stri. Another scale picture. (That was also the mountain we intended to scale)

Loch Coruisk and Me. We're buds. It's unfortunate it was such a poor day.

That's what it should have looked like. From the mountain we should have gone up. You may have won this battle nature...

 Of all days, everyone predicted this one to be the nicest. It really ended up being the worst... Maybe next time. We started the hiking day by trying to circumvent the perimeter of the loch but we just realized it would take too long with how wet the ground was. Regardless, we had a good time walking around the loch for a while. We made it back to our insertion point where we had to cross a fairly widely spread out rock bridge/damn. It was pretty intense. Falling in could really ruin... a lot. We eventually made it. Bodies, clothes, packs, and iPhones were all safe. From this point we started walking up a "trail" towards Srath na Creitheach and Glen Sligachan. About half way up, the trail completely disappeared and it started to steadily rain. At this point we really had to just say "screw it." Every part of us was going to get wet and we knew theoretically where we were, lets just get up the ridge. After an uncomfortable climb, we had an unrewarding tuna lunch at the top of the ridge. In the planning stages, we thought we might climb Sgurr na Stri to get a better view of the Cullins, but it was just far too wet and visibility was horrid. It would have been pointlessly dangerous. Did I still bitch about not trying? Refer to my statement near the top...

Glen Sligachan with River Sligachan snaking through it. This was just when it started to clear up. Those two lakes were only about a third of the way to Sligachan.

Thankfully it really started to clear up after we started to descend. Again, Skye presented us with a completely different environment. Merrie commented that it looked prehistoric. I agree. We had a good time crossing about 80 creeks that bled into River Sligachan in the Mexico-ish scenery. It stayed reasonably dry on the ground and in the air, so it that was a blessing considering how soaked we'd gotten the entire morning. 

We knew that the town(?) of Sligachan consisted of one large hotel and maybe 4 other houses. It also was the first place to have a proper campsite. We had gotten pummeled enough by the elements that we kept our faith up by saying that we were going to stay in the hotel that night, regardless of how the evening actually ended up. From about 3-4 miles out we could start to see it. The building was a nice goal to have in our sights. By the mid afternoon we made it to Sligachan to find out that the campsite was not "open" and did not have showers, or toilets, or laundry. With this awful twist, we pulled the trigger and got a hotel room. It got upgraded for free. That was cool. Being Merrie's first real backpacking trip, she was being an absolute trooper. We needed a treat. It was really a pretty brutal day of about 13-14 miles in the end. In hindsight, the hotel really kept the trip alive. The room was big enough that we emptied out or bags and slew all of our sweaty and just plain wet clothes and equipment all over the floor, heaters, and heated towel racks. After about 18 baths each, we had an embarrassingly pitiful PB&J dinner in our nice seating area. Merrie probably went to bed at 8pm and I reveled in BBC Scotland. I saw this documentary about Scott's failed Terra Nova Expedition and it was probably the best thing I've seen on TV this entire time I've been here. You know you're destined for greatness when your middle name is Falcon.

That was a pretty rewarding day. Maybe our middle names should be Falcon. God knows, Merrie needs another one...