Storr

It was misty and drizzly this morning, so we waited until the afternoon in the hope that it would brighten up a little. Here is Gus, doing his best to look nonchalant, with the Old Man of Storr in the background, cloud swirling around the pinnacles and water drops on the lens. Maybe just a hint of Mordor about this setting? The Old Man was first climbed in 1955 by that hard man of the Yorkshire gritstone, Don Whillans, who described the ascent of the loose and friable rock as like climbing porridge. It may be difficult to get an idea of scale from this, so according to the interpretation boards down at the car park, the Old Man, which is the biggest of the pinnacles, is the height of 12 London buses. At the base of the Old Man I came across a couple, and remarkably the woman was breast feeding a baby - what would Don have said about that, I wonder? Nothing that might be repeatable here.

A few minutes before this was taken, I stood in the tripod marks of some of the most celebrated landscape photographers in Britain, the classic view across the jumble of pinnacles south towards Portree, which in the best photographs is illuminated by the first light of the day. Gus and I saw precisely nothing, the clouds had completely enveloped the Old Man and his friends.

We descended back down to the base of the pinnacles, and cursorily fossicked around looking for the special plant that was first collected from here in the 1930's - Iceland purslane, Koenigia islandica. This is a mega-rarity, so small and underwhelming in its appearance that it wasn't identified for what it was until 1950. Gus had no interest in this exercise, so we gave up after a few minutes, and at any rate I have seen it once before.

The occasion I saw the purslane was maybe 15 years ago, on a day off from Cuillin Munro bagging. The ascent then was through a gloomy, midge infested conifer plantation on a steep and muddy track. Today, there were forest contractors clearing the debris left behind after the plantation was felled, the view of the cliffs and pinnacles has been opened up, and a native woodland restoration scheme is planned. There were very few midges about, indeed we have been lucky all week in only needing to apply the Smidge once, and never once having had to wear the bag over the head protective netting which we had bought in anticipation.

ps Gus has been with us now for 6 months, I had never really thought about keeping a dog, and now I wouldn't want to be without him, the perfect companion and friend.