Cuillin Harta Corrie and Coire Na Creich in the Cuillin: Boswell and Johnson visited Skye during their tour of the Western Isles in 1773, and observed snow falling on the summits of the range in September. Boswell described the Cuillin as "a prodigious range of mountains, capped with rocks like pinnacles in a strange variety of shapes". Uniquely for a group of Scottish mountains there are no records of the majority of the Cuillin summits having been climbed prior to the start of mountaineering as a leisure activity in the Victorian era, a situation reflected in the fact that around half
Cuillin Celtic mythology, with the hills being the place where Cuchullin learnt archery from the female warrior Scáthach. It is also suggested that the derivation of the name may reflect the "worthless" (in an agricultural or economic sense) nature of the hills, given their lack of vegetation. The Cuillin are a diverse and complex geological landscape, and there is a clear distinction visible between the two mountain types. The mountains formed from the remains of the magma chambers which fed volcanic eruptions. In the Black Cuillin the rocks cooled to form gabbro, the coarse-grained rock that makes up much of the