IMPORTANT: For some time the practice has been adopted by visitors to this place of building small cairns. More recently this has increased and the gathering of rocks to facilitate this is resulting is damage to this precious environment. So, the request is made to all geocachers: please do not follow this practice; respect and help preserve the landscape. Don't allow geocachers to be blamed for the damage that is being done.
Volcanic activity on northern Skye began about 60 million years ago; it has now stopped, thankfully, but along the eastern side of Trotternish a vast amount of evident landslip shows that some geological changes are still rumbling on. Some authorities estimate that at one time the lava that covered northern Skye was more than 1,200m thick, with most of the lava flows occurring from what are known as 'fissure eruptions' that happened over a long period of time. Today, the lavas of north Skye dip at a shallow angle to the west, and have an average individual thickness of just 10m.
The result of all this flow of geological material is a rather uniform landscape, punctuated by outcrops of harder rocks, such as today take the form of Castle Ewen, in the so-called Fairy Glen, near Uig.
To get there, take the minor, pot-holed road along the south side of Glen Uig, and once the isolated farmsteads and crofts are passed, you enter a fantastic wonderland of lumps and bumps and crazy pinnacles, far beyond which a walker's path leads east and up onto Beinn Edra.
Follow the road with care until the distinctive pinnacle of Castle Ewen comes into view – geologists have one view about this upthrust of rock, but everyone around Uig swears it was created by fairies. Park near, or just beyond a small lochan (on the right), and explore this amazing landscape.
To claim the cache:
1. Walk around the eastern end of the lake (bogbean grows here), and bear half-right to follow a path alongside a collapsed and partially overgrown wall, known here as a 'dyke' (past GC2F1GR: Stardust on the Hills) into an upper sanctum beyond Castle Ewen; here fanciful visitors have created all manner of stone pictures, but it is Castle Ewen that really impresses.
2. With great care – there is a very narrow ridge section – climb to the top of Castle Ewen. Be careful not to spin round too quickly as you take in the view, the summit is very small in area. Any suffering from vertigo will have issues here.
Answer these questions:
3. Estimate the maximum and minimum width of the gully immediately below the very summit of Castle Ewen, i.e. right below the highest point (NOT the wider gully below), and email me with your answer.
4. From the top of the castle (or from any suitable vantage point nearby, if you really can't make it to the top) survey the landscape to the east, towards Beinn Edra, into Coire Amadal, and see how many distinct lava flows you can detect – email me with your answer.
5. Tell me what you think has created the numerous small hills that you see, some of which have a sloping stepped appearance. What do you think caused this stepped pattern?
Glen Uig
by Richard Hugo
Believe in this couple this day who come
to picnic in the Faery Glen. They pay rain
no matter, or wind. They spread their picnic
under a gale-stunted rowan. Believe they grew tired
of giants and heroes and know they believe
in wise tiny creatures who live under the rocks.
Believe these odd mounds, the geologic joke
played by those wise tiny creatures far from
the world's pitiful demands: make money, stay sane.
Believe the couple, by now soaked to the skin,
sing their day as if dry, as if sheltered inside
Castle Ewen. Be glad Castle Ewen's only a rock
that looks like a castle. Be glad for no real king.
These wise tiny creatures, you'd better believe,
have lived through it all: the Viking occupation,
clan torturing clan, the Clearances, the World War
II bomber gone down, a fiery boom
on Beinn Edra. They saw it from here. They heard
the sobs of last century's crofters trail off below
where every day the Conon sets out determined for Uig.
They remember the Viking who wandered off course,
under the hazelnut tree hating aloud all he'd done.
Some days dance in the bracken. Some days go out
wide and warm on bad roads to collect the dispossessed
and offer them homes. Some days celebrate addicts
sweet in their dreams and hope to share with them
a personal spectrum. The loch here's only a pond,
the monster is in it small as a wren.
Believe the couple who have finished their picnic
and make wet love in the grass, the tiny wise creatures
cheering them on. Believe in milestones, the day
you left home forever and the cold open way
a world wouldn't let you come in. Believe you
and I are that couple. Believe you and I sing tiny
and wise and could if we had to eat stone and go on.
