Staffin

Why base here

Staffin is a township on the north-east coast of the Trotternish peninsula, on the A855 about 17 miles north of Portree, and Wikipedia gives its Gaelic name as An Taobh Sear, the East Side. Walkhighlands describes a traditional crofting community scattered around a bay and a stronghold of the Gaelic language. Behind it stands the Trotternish escarpment, which Wikipedia says runs some 30km down the spine of the peninsula to the Storr, its highest point at 719m.

The case for sleeping here rather than in Portree is the Quiraing. Isleofskye.com puts its car park 2.5 miles from Staffin by the road over the pass, against the 17 miles and more from Portree, and the Highland Council lists that car park at 40 spaces. Walkhighlands calls the first section of the circuit often very busy, and Staffin is where an early start costs least. It is not a town: Walkhighlands names Staffin Stores and the Columba 1400 café, and for anything more it is Portree.

On foot versus by car

Nothing on the hill starts at the door. The Quiraing circuit begins at the car park on the summit of the minor road between Staffin and Uig, and Walkhighlands gives it as 6.5km and 374m of ascent in three to four hours: a good path at first, then rough and rocky ground with one minor scramble across a gully, and a return over the top that is exposed to bad weather. Walkhighlands lists no public transport to the start and puts the nearest bus stop 3km below, at Brogaig in Staffin, so a walker without a car adds the road up and back.

The Old Man of Storr is the other way, about 10 miles south on the A855. Walkhighlands gives 5km and 340m of ascent in one and a half to two hours from the Storr car park, on clear paths that turn steep and rocky higher up, where signs warn of rockfall.

Two shorter walks start nearby. The Staffin slipway and An Corran circuit is 4km with 164m of ascent from the Columba Centre car park, by Walkhighlands’ figures, on paths and minor roads. Fingal’s Pinnacles, 5km and 278m of ascent from the Loch Langaig footpath on the A855 north of Staffin, is Walkhighlands’ answer to the Quiraing’s crowds: a good path up and a return over pathless moorland and steep grass. The whole Trotternish Ridge, from Flodigarry to Portree, is 36km and 2,400m of ascent by Walkhighlands’ figures, mostly pathless, and usually split over two days.

Practicalities

Kyle of Lochalsh station, across the Skye Bridge, is about 51 miles away by road. Stagecoach North Scotland runs routes 57A and 57C round Trotternish from Portree, by the Storr car park, Staffin, Flodigarry and Uig; the 57A’s stops include the Storr car park itself. Uig, over the Quiraing pass, is where Caledonian MacBrayne ferries leave for Tarbert on Harris and Lochmaddy on North Uist.

If the Quiraing car park is full, Walkhighlands points drivers to the space further west towards Uig and asks them to keep off the hairpins and passing places.

With children

At An Corran, at the end of the slipway road, there are dinosaur footprints in rock that NatureScot dates to the Middle Jurassic, about 165 million years old, one of five Skye sites NatureScot named for a Nature Conservation Order in 2019. The prints are not always showing: the Skye Ecomuseum says sand and seaweed often cover them, that mid-tide or after a winter storm is the best time to look, and that the rock is extremely slippery. Staffin Museum at Ellishadder, which isleofskye.com says the crofter Dugald Ross set up in 1976, holds a slab with the footprints of baby dinosaurs beside an adult’s, according to NatureScot.

Kilt Rock is the short stop with a view, five minutes’ walk from the bus stop outside the museum; isleofskye.com says its car park and viewing areas suit wheelchairs but have no toilets. The Quiraing’s scramble and its cliff edge, which Walkhighlands asks walkers to keep well back from, make it a walk for older children; the Staffin slipway circuit, at 4km, is the one that suits younger legs.