A Very Long Day's Journey Into Night

After three planes, almost twenty-four hours of travel, two lost pieces of luggage, one unpleasantly sassy customs agent, and an incident with a rather foolhardy weasel, the Millsaps Geology Field Study finally arrived in Inchnadamph, Scotland. For the many souls who likely have no clue where that is, Inchnadamph is a remote (emphasis on remote) hamlet in the far northwestern Highlands in the Assynt region of Scotland. As I sit here, I can see vast expanses of heather meadows, green carpeted mountains with sheer cliffs, one red stag, and several sheep that are just bumming around. Fortunately, the sun doesn't set till around 11:00 at night, so I have ample opportunity to admire the landscape. It's a nice recovery that was the mayhem of our travel experience.

Although I personally had a relatively stress free journey, with the exception of a customs officer who threatened to deport me, some of my fellow Millsapians experienced missed connecting flights, lost luggage, another difficult customs officer, and essential being lost with no way of contacting the others in our group. Delightful. However, after several hours of regrouping, we finally congregating at the Edinburgh airport with high spirits and sanity intact in order to begin our 5-hour trek into the Scottish Highlands. If anyone somehow thinks it useless or extravagant to travel all the way to Scotland just to study geology for two weeks, the sights I've encountered justify any doubts. First of all, the level of greenery defies adequate description. Fields upon fields of soft heather stretch out in every direction dotted by clusters of wild thistle and Queen Anne's Lace. These vast expanses are punctuated only by the mountains or transition into pastures of golden barley. But this being a geology trip, the mountains dominated my attention. On a large, simplified scale, it's as though someone took an ice cream scooper and dragged it back and forth along the earth to create deep U-shaped valleys. These massive, intersecting valley as well as the numerous lochs linger as the remnants of the ancient glaciers that once dominated the region. These flowing rivers of ice created the most stunning of all the sights we've seen yet: Glencoe Valley. Once the site of a brutal massacre between the Campbell and MacDonald clans, the steep cliffs of the glacial valley tower above you, as numerous waterfalls plummet towards the meadow of the valley floor. Unfortunately, we weren't able to stop and take pictures due to time constraints. Suffice it to say that Yosemite has nothing on Glencoe. It is unbeatable.

We briefly stopped in Fort Williams for groceries and a quick dinner at a pub. I ate interesting food, drank interesting beer, then spilled interesting beer all over myself. Typical. Beautiful though the drive continued to be, sheep and lochs failed to placate my growing weariness and motion sickness. The only real entertainment came whenever Dr. Harris accidentally drove off the narrow road or a wild weasel unexpectedly bounded in front of the car. Don't worry. The weasel lived, and we arrived safely at the gorgeous, yet desolate Inchnadamph. We set off early this this morning to begin our preliminary overview of the regional geology in preparation for several mapping projects. However, it is incredibly late and I have another early morning of hiking and mapping, so the rest (including pictures) will have to wait until tomorrow. Oh well.