Author Archives: jennings@princeton.edu

Tuesday dawned a bit brighter, with patches of blue sky among the clouds. I downed yet another Full Scottish Breakfast, or the parts of it that I could stomach, while Sue stuck to her high carb ingestion of every piece of bread she could find. We were soon involved in the daily ritual of packingContinue reading “Drymen to Sallochy Bay”

We had planned this as the longest day of the walk: 16 miles. The day started gloriously: after a cup of coffee and some nibbles on energy bars, we left the campground and walked up rather steeply through an increasingly beautiful oak forest. Once we had crested the ridge, we had a long, lovely descentContinue reading “Sallochy Bay to Inversnaid”

Sue had weaned me off the deadly dangers of the Full Scottish Breakfast, and I had settled into a nice routine of muesli, prunes, toast, and poached eggs. The weather was gorgeous again: clouds and sun, cool, crisp, and perfect for walking. No more than a mile from the hotel we discovered a gorgeous siteContinue reading “Inversnaid to Crianlairich”

A pleasant breakfast was followed by our retracing our steps through the village, past the train station, and up the long hill through the pine forest back to the West Highland Way. We had been too tired the night before to notice it, but Crianlairich is bounded to the north by a range of veryContinue reading “Crianlairich to Bridge of Orchy”

Bridge of Orchy to Kingshouse On our way down to breakfast we met the British couple we had first encountered above Drymen on day two and then a couple of times since. They were a bit nervous: without a booking at King’s House, they were walking all 21 miles to Kinlochleven. Fortified by a goodContinue reading “Bridge of Orchy to Kingshouse”

Knowing that we weren’t in a hurry, we actually slept in in our little tent and only got packed and ready for breakfast by shortly before ten. This was a mistake, as it turned out: we discovered that we needed to have the bags at King’s House and ourselves back at the intersection of theContinue reading “A Day in Glencoe”

Our last breakfast at King’s House, alas! This had been our favorite hostelry of the trip, and we were sad to leave it. We had seen the first couple of miles of trail from the Glencoe bus, so we knew what was ahead. The trail runs down Glencoe past the Herdsman and then turns uphillContinue reading “Kingshouse to Lairig More”

I woke up feeling fine, and munched the last energy bar in the bag to get me going. The one problem was that we were out of water, and the day promised to be warm. I should have insisted on using the filter and filling up, but Sue looked so horrified at the thought ofContinue reading “Lairig Mor to Fort William…and on to Plockton”

Day One: Skye We spent the day exploring the Isle of Skye, taking the bridge across from Kyle of Lochalsh and driving down toward the village of Old. The views north across a sound to the m0untains of Skye–the Black Cuillin to the left and the Red Cuillin to the right–are spectacular. Sue had earnedContinue reading “The Rest of the Trip”