What to do and see in Isle of Skye, Scotland: The Best Nature & Parks

The Black Cuillin are a world famous range of mountains on the Isle of Skye. Mainly composed of basalt and gabbro, it is from the dark colour of the gabbro that the Black Cuillin derives its name. The summits of the Cuillin are bare rock, jagged in outline and with steep cliffs and deep cut corries and gullies. All twelve Munros on Skye are Black Cuillin peaks except for Blaven which belongs to a group of outliers separated from the main ridge by Glen Sligachan. The highest point of the Black Cuillin is Sgùrr Alasdair at 992m (3,255ft). At the heart of The Cuillin lies one of Britain's most famous corrie’s, Loch Coruisk, a deep and forbidding body of water. It has inspired countless artists such as William Turner and Sir Walter Scott who described them after his visit in 1814: ‘We were now under the western termination of the high mountains of Cuillin, whose weather-beaten and serrated peaks we had admired at a distance from Dunvegan. They sunk here upon the sea, but with the same bold and peremptory aspect which their distant appearance indicated. They seemed to consist of precipitous sheets of naked rock, down which torrents were leaping in a hundred lines of foam. The tops, apparently inaccessible to human foot, were rent and split into the most tremendous pinnacles: towards the base of these bare and precipitous crags the ground, enriched by the soil washed away from them, is verdant and productive.’

These unique rock formations are a popular destination for hikers and climbers.

The Black Cullin range is rated one of the most challenging in Britain for climbers, with Sgurr Alasdair the highest mountain at 3,255 feet.

Loch Coruisk (Gaelic Coire Uisg/the 'Cauldron of Waters') is an inland fresh-water loch lying at the foot of the Black Cuillin on the Isle of Skye. Loch Coruisk is reputed to be the home of a water horse. After staying at Dunvegan Castle, Sir Walter Scott visited the Cuillin and Loch Coruisk in 1814 and described it thus: 'Rarely human eye has known A scene so stern as that dread lake, With its dark ledge of barren stone...' The loch is accessible by boat from Elgol or on foot from Sligachan (approximately 7-8 miles distance). It is also possible to walk from Elgol, but one section of the path known as the 'Bad Step' presents some potential difficulties for the nervous or inexperienced walker. The northern end of the loch is ringed by the Black Cuillin, often wreathed in cloud. From the southern end the Scavaig River, only a few hundred yards long, discharges into a sea loch, Loch Scavaig. The loch is nearly two miles long, but only about 400 yards wide.

This scenic lake is located in a steep glacier-carved basin deep in the heart of the Cuillin Mountains.