In the September of 2025 i walked a route which chained together 4 long distance trails the Speyside Way, The East Highland Way, The Glenfinnan Variant of the Cape Wrath Trail and the Skye Trail. It went roughly from the mouth of the River Spey on the north Moray Cost to the Isle of Skye. Hence Spey to Skye!
Its a great route, starts out gentle and gets progressively harder and remote as you approach Skye. Took me about 3 weeks to walk in total. I took my newly made frameless pack with me and my synthetic quilt. The pack was great, could have definitely have used something warmer sleep wise.
My impressions on the different paths are as follows:
Speyside Way.
A gentle start, generally sticking to the Spey valley, although does climb up into the hills every now and then. Not the easiest to find good water sources if you are camping, and some of the bits on cycle tracks are not super exciting. If you like Whiskey this passes through prime distillery territory.
East Highland Way
I only walked part of this as I departed from the route at Laggan to follow the Spey to its source in the Monadhliath , then went down Glen Roy to rejoin it at Roybridge. The sections south of Feshiebridge and the River Calder through Glen Banchor are nice.
I had to cross the River Spean at Roybridge to avoid a long roadwalk on an A-Road to rejoin the EHW. It had rained heavily for the past few days and the River Roy was in full Spate. However i found that theres a spot by Bunroy Park where the Spean shallows out and was easily wadable despite the rainfall.
Cape Wrath Trail Great Glen Variant.
This starts out very easy, going along the Caledonian Canal to Gairlochy. I cut the corner by heading into Glen Arkaig at Achnacarry, then heading north over the hills to rejoin the CWT in Glen Garry. Immediately became much more remote, and travel cross country was tough and slow. Really beautiful landscapes though. Glen Loyne and Glen Affric are spectacular. The descent down from Camban to Morvich past all the post glacial landforms is a real treat ( a hard climb coming the other way!)
From Shiel Bridge i could have taken a bus onto Skye, but instead walked to Glenelg and got the ferry. This involved heading south from Shield bridge up towards Frocan but heading east and climbing a small pass between Sgurr Mhic Bharraich and Sgurr A Gharg Gharaidh, then coming into Glen More, with a stop to visit Suardalan Bothy. The ferry over to Kylerhea is great fun. Hitched a lift into Broadford.
Skye Trail
Skye is undeniably beautiful. The Cuillin hills, the Trotternish ridge, the amazing views over to the Western Isles and Torridon. The Skye trail is also comparatively easy in comparison to the cross country walking of the CWT. I like that it has a variety of route options.
I took the Bad Step round into Loch Coruisk, which felt sketchy even in the dry, only do if you have a head for heights. Worth it though for the amazing landscape. The other variant I took was to climb up onto the Trotternish directly from Portree via Ben Dearg.
Skye is extremely windy! The first few days were pretty still, but after that it picked up and I sited my tent to maximise shelter when I camped (even cowboy camped one night because it was dry and nowhere good to put the tent). Also almost everyone seems to walk from North to South, when the wind is generally coming from the south. Saw many hikers struggling into the wind on the Trotternish while i was almost skipping along in the other direction.
