A Hebridean Holiday Day 3: In Which We Climb the Highest Mountain on Harris. . .

I've been bed-ridden with that change-of-season virus that seems to hit every autumn so it's taken me a little while to get these posts up, but now that I'm on the mend, it's really good to look back and to remember feeling healthy and alive out in the fresh air and hills of the Hebrides.  Our third day started out promising and we headed for Clisham - the highest mountain on Harris. It's a fairly steady plod up, again over boggy and muddy ground, but because it's a popular walk, there actually was a path to follow.

From the top we were just able to get views looking east, including our previous day's walk up Toddun (that bump just to the right of center), before the clouds rolled in.

This is the top of Clisham where there wasn't much visibility and it was windy, but at least we could see where we were placing our feet.

It then cleared up slightly for lunch - this is the view looking south-east.

And the view of where we are headed - a horseshoe ridge veering off to the right. We needed to climb down and then up again first though.

Not much to see here.

It cleared up a little after we came down and we could look back and see where we'd walked.

Then a long walk back over bog - as colourful as it is, it's still very hard on the legs.

And the final view before heading back to the van.  This was a tiring walk for me - we were out for about seven hours because it's such slow going through the bog. 

While it had been quite drizzly on and off throughout the day, about five minutes before we reached the end,  it started to pour. So no beach today, but I was quite happy to get back to the hotel and a nice hot shower.   For the next post - my favourite walk of the trip.