The Old Man of Storr

If you've never visited the Old Man of Storr you really should: I reckon it's the closest thing we've got this side of The Pond to the sort of thing you'll find in Monument Valley in the US.

On the day we visited the weather forecast wasn't great: cold, showers, wind and maybe a bit of sun. So inevitably we got the lot. Anyway we set off up through the woods.

It wasn't long before the Old Man came into view, although it wasn't great weather for photos and we pressed on north toward the 504m spot height on the 1:25K map and then round before a minor scramble took us up onto the ridge and we could head back south for The Storr where there's a trig point.

The sky cleared a bit for a while so the views from the top of The Storr where pretty impressive.

But it was when we moved towards the East Top that we got our best views of the Old Man and the surrounding stacks.

It's hard to get the size of the Old Man from those photos. But if I tell you there's several people in the photo above standing at the base of the Old Man that will give you a clue. I bet you can't see them.

There they are!

The way down is through a wee gully that you only really know is the right one when you are at the very top of it. After a pathless drop down from the summit and a traverse above the cliffs, you come to a good sized burn draining the Bealach Beag, a path, and a very useful marker cairn.

This is the descent gully from below. It looks awful when you are standing looking down it, but take your time and it shouldn't present any problems. In fact the bigger problem was getting across the boggy field and through the fence to the road to get back to the car.