Bla Bheinn, translated from Norse to mean “blue mountain”, is often crowned the most scenic mountain on the island of Skye. Despite what its name suggests, it not actually blue; people believe the name came from the way it reflects the blueness of the sky on a cloudless day.

Getting to Bla Bheinn is quite difficult, even by Skye standards where buses come twice a day on weekends. Because the starting point was on the side of a small country road, we had to hire a private taxi; later when our hostel manager found out we had done so, he reprimanded us and gave a huge lecture on how, apparently, the primary form of “public” transportation on Skye is hitchhiking. As for the climb itself, it is easily one of the hardest hikes I’ve ever done. Despite only measuring 5 miles to and back and ascending 3,000 feet, many guidebooks recommend at least 5 to 6 hours to complete the trail; now we know why.

The terrain is very rocky, and certain segments require intensive scrambling. In addition, the trail was extremely hard to follow because of the mess of rocks everywhere. We joked that it was a DIY ascent: just choose your own path up the mountain. Perhaps it was because of that mentality that at one point, we crawled up a 45 degree incline for an hour only to turn around and slide down on our butts on the loose pebble when we realized that that was most definitely not the way up.

You would think the climb down would be easier as we eventually found the trail up, but it wasn’t. Somehow the trail disappeared on us, and we ended up crossing streamlets and climbing down little waterfalls on our DIY descent.

The progression of frustration is also amusing thinking back. Initially, we would carefully walk around soggy ground and hop from rock to rock to keep our feet dry. Near the end however, we would just walk right through streams because our shoes were drenched anyway. All it all, it was a great day.