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The Old Man is a basalt stack on the Trotternish landslip, north of Portree. It looks like a finger from the road and like a proper lump of geology once you are under it. The path is steep, eroded, and in season very busy. It is a walk, not a staircase, and it is not the place to discover your trainers have no grip.
Doing it without hating it
Early. Or a foul weekday. Parking fills; do not invent spaces. Weather on the ridge is not the weather in Portree. If the cloud is on the deck you will walk up into a wet blanket and see nothing — which is still a walk, just an honest one.
Do not scramble the pinnacle. People do. People also get hurt. The view is from the path. More Skye: the island, Fairy Pools, the jar.
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