Climbing Giolabhal Glas

Today we decided to climb a mountain. Actually, that's not entirely true - first we got up late and then we went for lunch at the First Fruits Tea Room, just around the corner from the hotel. They had delicious smoothies and good food and wonderful cakes. Afterwards, we had just returned to our room when we noticed that the sun had come out, making it a rare nice day on Harris. With that, we decided to climb the mountain that is visible from our bedroom window, something we had been intending to do since first laying eyes on it. So we stocked up on water and juice and set off.

The ground on the lowlands was very marshy, and eventually we found out why when we stumbled across this tiny lake of accumulated rainwater.

Lots of randomly scattered rocks made for some impressive formations - this one had a little shaded cave underneath it. The question is, how did all these rocks get like this?

Every time we reached the summit of a major incline we looked back, and the view over Tarbert continued to improve. This was about as high as we got; beyond the town lies South Harris, and off on the horizon is Skye (maybe).

After 71 minutes we reached a major summit, albeit one that still wasn't the mountain we'd set out to conquer. Conscious of our dwindling supplies and the rapidly approaching evening, we decided to call it a day and began our descent, taking a different route to see what we would find.

This new path led us to a beautiful mountain stream that has carved an impressive path for itself all the way down to the ocean, with many waterfalls and gorges. The water is incredibly clear, fresh off the mountains and yet to pick up any level of sediment. It also contains absolutely no life, neither fish nor bugs.

Eventually we ran out of path after the stream made its way to a minor loch, and had to sneak out of the fields and back into town via somebody's back garden. 

The view from our bedroom window - the mountains are much further away than they look.

All in all it was an excellent days adventure - the stream was certainly the coolest thing we've found on Harris so far, and the views from the summit we reached were excellent. Next time, we'll pack more supplies and aim to reach the top of the mountain that we now know is named Giolabhal Glas.