I took advantage of the break between Christmas and New Year’s Day to explore the Highlands, particularly the Isle of Skye. At this time of year in the Highlands, the sun rises around 9:00 AM, providing full daylight by 10:15 AM and setting at 4:00 PM. This gives about six hours of daylight to take photographs, with the sun remaining low on the horizon.
That morning, I had an appointment with an iconic site on the Isle of Skye: the famous Old Man of Storr mountain. After driving for an hour and a half in the dark and narrowly avoiding two rams on the road, I reached the site’s car park at 8:30 AM, where only two other cars were parked.
The sky was still grey, and a thick fog enveloped the mountain. The day would soon begin to break. Well-equipped, I took the path, which turned out to be much steeper and rockier toward the end of the climb. It took about 2 hours and 30 minutes to complete the 5-kilometre course, with a total elevation gain of nearly 720 meters.
With the mist, the place offered a special, ghostly atmosphere. The rocky peaks, shaped by erosion, including the famous Old Man of Storr—a towering monolith measuring 55 meters—dominated the grand landscape. It was a moment of weightlessness in nature.
Legend has it that the Old Man of Storr was a giant who lived on the Trotternish Ridge. When he died, he was buried there, and it is said that his thumb protrudes from the earth, measuring dozens of meters in height.
