Beinn Damh!

I woke after a refreshingly solid 8 hr sleep in this cottage offered by neighbors of Eileen's parent just a couple doors away.  Thank you Joan & George!!!!!

"Sunny Banks" - I think all the houses in the highlands have names.

This is the house John and Marie live in nearby. Everyone has a great view from every window:

Today's adventure was a hike up the mountain across the loche called Beinn Damh which is the view directly across from Eileen's family's village. 

We climbed up the higher visible peek on the right side of this mountain. 

The first part was more like a Tolkien novel. It is lush and wooded with old growth and trickling streams of delicious clean water that we drank.

Soon enough we were climbing up the base of the mountain where nothing grew taller than the heather which makes  these hills green. It was a bit challenging for having a path of loose rocks and gravel or boggy peat, not to mention that it always felt a lot more steep than it looked. 

We had lunch after the bulk of our climb at a location  Eileen identified as the "saddle"- a level expanse that connects the two peeks.

The view was breath taking from the Saddle, though I'm not entirely sure if that was unrelated to the demand the climb had on my lungs.

You can see parts of the Isle of Sky in the hazy distance.

After lunch we pushed on to the peek that offered us the view of her village, Alligin.  

It was quite steep at times :

Alligin is along the distant shore directly behind Eileen. (above).

There was kearn at the top, which is a collaborative stack of rocks marking various climbers presence.

This one was fortified with cement and had a flagpole. 

Heres a 360 degree view from the top, where Eileen hasn't been since she was 13 yrs old. 

In the end, we can claim we climbed 2,700 feet up. Our knees ached, our legs felt like rubber and our reward was a cold beer at the Torridon Inn just near the base of the mountain - where we saw this:

(*we actually chose a peek a couple hundred feet lower than the tallest, for preference to see Eileen's village)

This is great:
Eileen's Aunt and Uncle ran into us after our hike, and joined us for a drink and showed us this photo on their camera they took a couple hrs earlier when they saw us way up on top of the mountain when they were chatting to Eileen's Parents about in Alligin:

not a bad camera from so far away, eh?

Later Eileen's mom made a feast of a dinner party that included smoked salmon on a salad, roast venison with mashed potatoes and a tasty pickled cabbage dish that I had third helpings of. Followed by rhubarb custard and a cheese board from our Tain visit the day before. :)

It was a very good day.