Scottish Highlands

Glencoe and Skye. There’s really not much to say — just close to the most gorgeous place I can possibly imagine.

There were midges, of course. We arrived after the midges began to swarm, but before the female midges arrived and started biting, so we were constantly being assaulted by tiny bugs, but at least they weren’t actually eating us alive.

Our only other real issue was that it was wet. Scotland is one big bog. We camped directly on a bog one night (pickings were slim) and on a kind of grass-and-fallen-branch platform over a bog one other night. I kind of liked it, since it feels about as far from any landscape we have in the US as I can imagine, but the wet-boot feeling did start to get old. I’ll pack more appropriate gear next time. But overall, I didn’t mind the wetness and the weather. I’m from the West Coast, and that constant dampness genuinely makes me happy. But next time I’ll need to add more padding days in case rain postpones my hiking plans. I didn’t end up getting to do most of the big hikes that I had planned on this trip, purely because of wind and rain.

Big thank you to walkhighlands, which was an absolutely indispensable resource for our trip. The bog-o-meter does not lie.