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Every year we visit Skye, and Marsco is always on our list of things to do. For whatever reason, we always seemed to run out of time to do it, or other mountains took priority. This time, the weather was perfect all week, so we found the time to squeeze it in. I'm so glad that we did.
The weather was great again this morning. Very little wind and beautiful reflections on Loch Harport, as we set off to Sligachan.
The route is one that will be familiar with anyone who has made the long (but well worth it) trek to Sgurr Na Stri. You follow the same path for a while, before turning off near the foot of Marsco.
The next section was surprisingly hard going. The path is a little boggy for a while, and then it seems to get steeper and steeper. There's a rusty old fence that runs parallel to the path, all the way towards the top, so you can't really go too wrong. The hard going becomes worth it as Blaven begins to come into view.
The final section of path is on very steep grass. It gave surprisingly good grip, but could be trickier on a wet day. Suddenly we reached the ridge line and the whole of the Cuillins came into view. In fact, there are views in all directions of the entire island.
We made a short detour to the left, which gives great views of Blaven. Then we headed back to get to the summit. At first, I thought that there was a great big boulder or a large trig point to mark the summit. Then it moved! Annoyingly I didn't have my zoom lens to hand, but we could make out what looked like a Golden Eagle on the summit. (Didn't have the white tail of a sea eagle, but looks too big to be a Buzzard?). We sat and watched for 10 minutes. Quite a treat.
We were now in the tricky position of not wanting to disturb the bird, but also wanting to make it to the summit! We crept a little closer and tried not to spook it. I think it was well aware of our presence, though. Eventually it took flight.
Now it was just a short walk to the summit, which narrowed a bit more than we had expected. It's a good flat path all the way, so there's no real danger if you're careful. Even if you were concerned about the exposure, you could still get the great views without having to walk this final section. We were on the summit for almost an hour, having some lunch. We didn't see a single person until returning to Sligachan.
Probably one of my favourite walks on Skye. Whilst it doesn't quite have the magic or the challenge of the munros, it still has to be one of the best viewpoints on the entire island. You can see so much! Definitely worth doing. It is still a tough walk in places, but without the scrambling or rocks that you'd get on the bigger peaks.
