Hiking Scotland - Inchnadamph Bone Caves - Out & About with the GeoKs

Hike date = May 24, 2024. This was the final day of a week hiking in the Wilds of Assynt.

We enjoyed the finale for our first week of guided hiking in Scotland. Highlights of the Inchnadamph Bone Caves trail include a small waterfall, some creekside hiking, three caves and lots of natural history. It’s a 4.7 km (3 mile) lollipop trail that is pretty easy until the final approach to the caves, which is a short steep climb with a bit of a drop off on one side.

Getting There

The trailhead parking lot is about 30 km (20 miles) from Ullapool, via the familiar to us A835 / A837. Two things were a bit different this morning.

First off, since it was the last day of our trip, everyone had to be fully packed, which meant the back of the van was FULL by the time all suitcases and hiking packs were aboard. It’s a good thing our guide could tuck his luggage into the Thule rooftop carrier!

luggage packed cargo space at the back of a 9-passenger van

Second, instead of our guide running into town to collect our lunches, we all drove into Ullapool from our B&B to collect our sandwiches and treats for our packed lunches. En route, we spotted a tractor parade!

After collecting our bagged lunches, we reversed course, once again heading north from Ullapool. In about half an hour we reached the relatively small parking lot, with no facilities at all. The landowner has room for a few people to camp, with a payment box attached to the boarded up building a short distance form the parking lot.

Why the name “Bone Caves”?

Notably, there’s quite a bit of information about the Bone Caves posted on a large sign.

In the late 1800s, geologists Ben Peach and John Horne discovered the Bone Caves while working in the area to try to unlock the puzzle of how older rocks can lie above younger rocks.

While we only entered three, a total of four natural limestone caves sit in the high limestone cliff walls of Creag nan Uamh (Crag of the Caves). The caves are named for the large number of animal bones discovered during numerous excavations: badger, reindeer, fox, and bear, to name a few. Some of these bones date back to the Paleolithic Age. The prevailing theory is that the bones were swept into the caves by glacier melt during previous ice ages.

Geologists and archaeologists have discovered no evidence that humans ever lived in these caves, but human bones have been found there, suggesting it may have been used for burial.

For more details on the geological and archaeological aspects of the Bone Caves, I found this to be a good reference.

Outbound

We struggled to get a proper start on this hike. Why? All the photographers in the group stopped to photograph the pretty little waterfall on the Allt nan Uamh river just a few minutes from the parking lot.

two small waterfalls on a Scottish highlands river

After a firm reminder from our guide that we had to be back in Inverness by mid-afternoon so that people could catch their trains (us included), we started up the hill to the left of the river, quickly gaining elevation.

group of hikers on a trail over rolling, bright green hills in the Scottish highlands

From there, we hiked for several minutes in a valley bottom, with the trail roughly paralleling the river. We all stopped at one point, intrigued by the fact that the river seemed to seep up out of the ground! Hydrologists would be able to explain the karst geomorphology that causes this river to flow almost entirely underground!

group of hikers observing where an underground spring rises to become a river

We soon resumed climbing, at a fairly gentle rate. Creag nan Uamh loomed ahead.

Line of hikers ascending a trail towards a limestone hill with caves

The final approach to the caves was the most challenging part of the trail – fairly steep and with a sharp drop-off to the left. I was glad of my trekking poles. And for the sight of various wildflowers that redirected my attention from the drop-off to the blossoms!

We had time to explore three of the four caves, using phone flashlights to illuminate some of the deeper recesses. Our guide explained that due to natural erosion of the limestone, the caves are much shallower than when they were first explored and excavated in the late 1800s.

5 hikers inside the mouth of a cave in a limestone hill in the Scottish highlands

looking across a valley from inside a cave on a hillside in the Scottish highlands

green lichen coated rocks illuminated by flashlight at the back of a cave

The view back down the valley was pretty, even on a cloudy day. It would be truly picturesque under blue sky, with wildflowers dotting the hillsides.

view down a valley from a steep, grass-covered slope

Return

To complete the lollipop part of the route, we carried on from the Bone Caves, looking down on the valley bottom trail we’d soon be trekking.

hiking path on a hillside above a wide valley in the Scottish highlands

Once around the shoulder of Creag nan Uamh, we gradually descended to the valley bottom and then turned back down the valley. From there, we had a good line of sight to the cave openings.

stormy sky over a limestone bluff with caves at its base

From there, it was soon a matter of retracing our route from an hour earlier, roughly paralleling the dry river bed, then the above ground stretch of the river.

a series of small drops along the Allt nan Uamh river in the Scottish highlands

SUMMARY

Our GPS tracked the total distance at 4.7 km (3 miles), with 176 meters total elevation gain (168 meters net). Our group of 9 hikers took 2.5 hours to cover the route. That includes a full hour of stopped time, when we explored the caves and took photographs. Smaller, speedier groups could easily make this a 90 minute stop along the North Coast 500.

For a video recap of this hike, watch Mr GeoK’s Relive video recap.