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Home , Ardnamurchan, Callanish, Dun Carloway, Hebrides, Iona, Isle of Mull

Hiking ’s Inner & Outer June 15-25, 2019 (11 days) with Professor of Eric Leonard

Saturday, June 15, 2019 - DEPART HOME

Sunday, June 16 - , SCOTLAND | | Arrive in Glasgow, Scotland, at no later than 12:00 p.m., and you will be met and transferred to Oban in , for the to the Isle of Mull. Overnight at The Western Isles Hotel for three nights. (D)

Monday, June 17 - Isle of Mull: | Crater Distance: 3 miles. Ascent: 400ft. Many of the residents of Mull left from this beautiful sandy bay for a new and uncertain life in North America. Our walk will take us through a woodland in which the trees are sculpted by the wind and by people. We continue to a deserted village and the pier from which the people living in this village left for North America during the clearances in the early 1800s. Of geological interest are two volcanic dykes leading into the bay. Our second walk will take us to Lochan’s Airde Beinn, or Crater Loch, an extinct volcanic vent. We will hike up to the lochan and around the rim of the loch with stunning views in all directions, on a clear day. (B,L,D)

Tuesday, June 18 - Isle of Mull | Isles of and | Isle of Mull Short walks on both . Today we will visit two islands off the of Mull: Staffa and Iona. The beautiful, uninhabited of Staffa is our first stop, and best known for its magnificent columns. Their effect is most overwhelming at An Uamh Binn (musical cave) or, as it is more commonly known, Fingal’s Cave, which is scientifically among the lowest strata of Mull’s stepped landscape of lava flows and was artistically the inspiration for Mendelssohn’s “Hebrides Overture.” From Staffa we cruise to Iona, an enduring symbol of in Scotland. St. and his followers came here from in A.D. 563 and founded a monastery that became the heart of the early Scottish Church. St. Columba’s fame attracted pilgrims to Iona from the 7th century onward. The island also served as a burial ground for important and holy people, including kings of Scotland (among them Macbeth, who died in A.D. 1057). Iona’s rocks are mainly ancient Lewisian of igneous origin, but there is also an important band of marble from which the ’s communion table was carved. The of Iona hides the southern extension of the Moine thrust fault, itself explaining Iona’s difference from Mull. (B,L,D)

Wednesday, June 19 - Isle of Mull | | Glendrian | | Distance: 2.5 miles. Ascent: 150ft. Take the ferry to Kilchoan, , where we will walk to Glendrian, an abandoned township in the center of the Ardnamurchan caldera. Travel north through (along the ‘Road to the Isles’) to Mallaig, where we catch the ferry to Skye. This is a peaceful and remote part of the west Highlands, with high mountains and narrow lochs. Overnight at Hotel for three nights. (B,L,D)

Thursday, June 20 - Isle of Skye: Oronsay | Distillery Distance: 4 miles. Ascent: 300ft. Today’s walk will take us along a shingle to the of Oronsay, from where we have an excellent view to the MacLeod’s Tables in Duirinish. They are an excellent example of the lava flows from the volcanoes of Tertiary age, which became active around 60 million years ago. These lava flows are horizontal or gently sloping, and form distinctive flat-topped hills with stepped sides. This afternoon we tour the famous and Visitor Centre, where we can enjoy a dram of Skye’s only single malt . (B,L,D)

Friday, June 21 - Isle of Skye: and The Distance: 3 miles. Ascent: 300ft. Take a boat from across the sea-loch Scavaig. Along the way we should see many , seals, and (if we are lucky) . Disembark and walk to Loch Coruisk, Britain’s finest glacially-scoured basin, in the heart of the beautiful, jagged-peaked Cuillin mountains. The Cuillin are carved from a gabbro intrusion, the eroded core of yet another of western Scotland’s Tertiary volcanoes. After our walk, return to Elgol by boat. (B,L,D)

Saturday, June 22 - Isle of Skye | Landslips | Isle of Harris Distance: 3 miles. Ascent: 950ft. Before catching the ferry from Uig to , we will pass through the north of Skye to visit Britain’s most spectacular landslips at and the , on the Trotternish . This peninsula largely consists of a long, west-dipping escarpment of massive, immensely thick, Tertiary lava flows overlying relatively incompetent beds of Jurassic clays and limestones. Over time, the instability of this arrangement has resulted in enormous landslips from the scarp face and created a spectacularly unusual landscape. Most of the better-defined landslides have slipped since glacial times, but glacial till on top of some of the more smoothed-over masses shows that the process has actually been continuing for a much longer time. We will take a walk to the Old Man of Storr, where the are especially labyrinthine, yet accessible. Then board the ferry for Tarbert, on the Isle of Harris, in the late afternoon. Overnight at the Harris Hotel for three nights. (B,L,D)

Sunday, June 23 - Isle of Harris Distance: up to 6 miles. Ascent: negligible. The rocks of South Harris, as with most of the , largely consist of Lewisian gneisses, the ancient basement or Caledonian foreland dating from as many as 3 billion years ago, and the attractive west coast is a good place to see a variety of gneisses. We visit the 14th-century church of St. Clement at Roghadal (), an architectural and historical jewel built on and beside outcrops of metamorphosed sediments, including marble. Garnet, kyanite, and graphite crystals can all be found in nearby rocks. Farther west is a good exposure of a spectacular pegmatite, near Taobh Tuath (Northton Bay), plus the ruins of an ancient chapel. To round off the day, we take a walk across the and of Losgaintir (), which exhibits as good a transition from a coastal sedimentary environment, across calcareous grassland to acid , as exists in western Scotland. (B,L,D)

Monday, June 24 - Isle of Harris | : , , Gearrannan | Isle of Harris Distance: 2.5 miles. Ascent: negligible. Begin the day with a visit to the magnificent, 5,000-year-old Standing Stones of Callanish (Calanais in Gaelic). The main stone complex contains around 50 stones. A ring of large stones about 12 meters in diameter surround a huge monolith at its center and the remains of a chambered . There are lines of stones running north, south, east, and west from the , and two other stone circles are nearby. Continue on to , one of the best-preserved Iron Age brochs in western Scotland. The was probably built in the 1st century B.C., and radiocarbon dating shows that it was last occupied around A.D. 1300. End the day with a visit to the village of Gearrannan, which dates back to the 1600s. The houses were still inhabited until the second half of the 20th century. The double drystone walls, low profile, and insulating thatch made well suited to the Hebridean climate. We visit the museum, which provides insights into life in the village in the mid-1900s, including demonstrations of Harris weaving. (B,L,D)

Tuesday, June 25 - Isle of Harris | Glasgow | FLY HOME In the morning we travel to for a one-hour group flight to Glasgow to connect with independent flights homeward (which should depart Glasgow no earlier than 3:15 p.m.). (B)