Hiking The Old Man of Storr and The Quiraing on the Isle of Skye

Back in June, my parents, Chris, and I set off on a road trip through Scotland. You can read all about our amazing trip here, but in this post, Chris and I wanted to share our Isle of Skye hiking adventures with you!

On the Friday of our trip, we woke up in our lovely AirBnB apartment and headed to Portree, the main village of the Isle of Skye, for a quick breakfast at Cafe Arriba. We needed to carb up, as we were planning on doing not one, but TWO hikes that day!

My parents and I thought Chris was a little over-ambitious when he made this plan. My mom and dad are not hikers and I was 5 months pregnant. It was expected to be preeeeeetty hot that day and Chris wanted us to hike for 5 hours?? We had our doubts, but Chris said he thought we could do it, so we all said we’d try!

We drove through the first fog of our trip (not ideal for hiking, one would think!) to the bottom of our first mountain: The Old Man of Storr. We parked the car, laced up our hiking boots, grabbed our backpacks, and started up the path.

We started the hike in a bit of fog, but after a few minutes of hiking up, we realised we had quickly risen above it. And the views were amazing. The combination of sun above and fog below made for some rather incredible sights.

My parents and I hiked the small loop. Chris hiked the first part with us, but broke off when we got to the top of the loop to go a little further. As he continued up, we started making our way down and around, marvelling at the views below us.

When we got back down to the bottom, my parents and I sat on a fallen log and admired the views some more as we waited (just a few minutes) for Chris to catch back up with us. When he arrived, he laughed and said, “I was wondering why my backpack was feeling so heavy… forgot to take my work laptop and charger out of it!!” Yes. He had just hiked a mountain with a laptop in his backpack. Oops!

After hiking the Old Man of Storr, we continued on in the direction of The Quiraing, our next (much bigger) hike. We stopped along the way and picked up some snacks for the trail: apples, oranges, cheese, peanuts, and some raisin bread.

The drive up to The Quiraing was stunning. Any fog from the morning had vanished and there were blue skies and lush, green mountains all around us. When we got to the parking lot, we again laced up our hiking boots, lathered on the sunscreen, grabbed our backpacks and a set of hiking poles, and started toward the trail.

The views, right from the start, were incredible.

The heat quickly got to us as we ascended the mountain, and we stopped frequently for water, snacks, and just to breathe a little. (Carrying an extra 15 pounds on this preggo body was tough!)

We all pushed through the heat and continued on, rejoicing when we got to the U-turn point in the hike, but then realising there was no going back now! If we turned back, we’d have the same views, but if we continued up, we’d have much different ones! As the hike started to get steeper, Chris broke off again, as he did on our earlier hike, to check out a lookout point. My mom, dad, and I stared up at the hill we faced and trudged on.

At this point, my dad somehow got a second wind and turned into the Energiser Bunny. He pushed up the hill practically without stopping, while my mom and I held back a bit, stopping for water and breathing breaks here and there. (It was really hot!!) We could see Chris off in the distance behind us and my dad off in the distance in front of us.

Eventually, we all met back up together at the top of the hill. We celebrated the hard work being over by breaking for “lunch;” the leftover raisin bread, peanuts, and oranges, and lots more water. We enjoyed the dramatic views while Chris and my dad made plans to get “the coldest beer in Scotland” on the way back to our AirBnB.

We headed back down to the car, stopping occasionally to take a few more photos of the beautiful Skye landscape.

Dirty and sweaty after miles of hiking in the hot Scottish sun, my parents, Chris, and I piled back into our little blue car and headed back to the AirBnB. What a day it had been!