Caves of Skye

"How beautiful they are, the lordly ones, who dwell in the hills, in the hollow hills." — From ‘The Faery Song’ in ‘The Immortal Hour’ by Fiona Macleod, quoted in ‘Skye: the island and its legends’ by Otta F. Swire.

Not for us the rough gabbro and the polished basalt of the Cuillins. The siren call of limestone had us under its spell, and we were determined to taste the subterranean world that lies hidden beneath the isle of Skye.

Uamh Cinn Ghlinn

This cave, also known as Valley Head cave, is certainly the best known sporting trip on Skye. We approached from Camas Malag via the Allt nan Leac valley. This is a delightful if boggy walk in, past flowers, birds, fragments of woods, traces of earlier habitations, and intriguing springs and small caves. The entrance we sought was the upper entrance just west of the stream sink. This is a ‘manhole’ which drops into the streamway. Downstream goes as hands and knees crawling until the roof drops to a formidable-looking duck. ‘Ha, you’re going to love this bit’ I said. Undeterred, Karen shot forwards before backing out again, water dripping out of the ears, claiming ‘there must be another way’. A seductive climb into a higher level crawl was investigated, but we soon established ‘there is no other way’. Karen attacked the duck for a second time. After some thrashing and spluttering a call came back: ‘it’s getting bigger now’. ‘Oh bugger’, I thought, ‘I’m going to have to follow’. But it was worth it. Beyond the duck, the cave enlarged to become walking size (well, walking sideways), with the occasional larger chamber and sporting climb. We reached a section of passage called the ‘Spiky Hassocks’, being floored with streaky white marble, and ‘tramlines’ or ridges of harder less eroded rock. Campanule Chamber followed soon afterwards, and it was slightly past this that we turned around since beyond here the cave gets very aqueous. The cave was well worth the effort, full of splendid marble rock formations and colours.

Breakish Cave

A couple of days later we visited what could well be the finest cave in the whole of Lower Breakish. It is only a hundred yards from the main road and is quite well decorated in places: by calcite deposits in parts of the streamway, and by other deposits in the entrance crawl. What animal lives in there we may never know, but it should surely stop eating curries or its gut problems will never go away. About 10 km down the Elgol road, Jo finally couldn’t stand the smell any more and threw us out to wash both ourselves and our gear in a nearby stream.

Spar Cave

Later in the same day (and considerably cleaner) we reached the parking spot for Spar Cave, to find Edward and Liz already there, and to be followed moments later by the Clach Glas - Blaven team. Not a coincidence: access to Spar Cave requires low water conditions, and visiting times are dictated by tide tables. Otta Swire writes of Spar Cave that much of its beauty is a thing of the past, so it must have been very spectacular at one time. Even now, it contains as fine a display of white flowstone as might be wished for in any cave in the country.

Allt na Pairte Cave

Our final cave was perhaps something of a collectors item, yet it has the distinction of a 20’ pitch, and the prospect of some unique calcite pebble columns. This cave was explored by Arthur Champion along with others from the Moldywarps club. When the pitch was first found, the description of the chamber below gave the impression of the ‘knave of St Pauls with Niagara falling into it’. Of course we had to go and see all this for ourselves. The weather did its best to put us off and getting changed by the side of the road in wind and driving rain was not pleasant. We picked a way up to the good track that crosses over and down to Borereaig. When the stream starts to drop away, on the far side is a tree-lined hole which is the entrance to the cave. A small stream sinks at the bottom of the hole but the way in is a dry passage above the sink which lowers to a short crawl, opening out onto the head of the 20’ pitch. This we rigged with a length of SRT rope, from a sling around a natural thread belay, and backed up to the bolt anchor placed by the original explorers. We abseiled down the pitch (surely a first use of SRT underground on Skye?), which almost constitutes a rope climb apart from being overhanging for the bottom 8’ or so. The chamber below was certainly impressive by Skye standards. Following a rift straight on leads down a couple of climbs to find the stream again. From here one can take a wet crawl if one wants, or avoid the wet crawl by sliding over a block. Then in the chamber in front of us were the famous pebble columns. These are formed, presumably, by lime-rich water dripping onto a bed of pebbles. Subsequently the uncalcited part of the bed has been washed away to leave a free-standing wall of calcited pebbles. Beyond here, the cave diminishes to a low crawl which we left for another day. Back on the surface, the rain had stopped but a thick hill fog was present instead. On the way back we called in at a tea shop in Broadford for a well-earned cuppa and piece of chocolate bun.

Caving : Karen Summerskill + Patrick Warren; Surface : Jo Warren

Thanks to Arthur Champion for additional information.

Reprinted from CPC Record 75, 29-30 (July 2004).

Copyright © (2004) Patrick B Warren and Craven Pothole Club Ltd.