Category: West Highland Way

Because we were taking so little, departure day wasn’t frantic–but somehow still busy. Connie very nicely drove us to the Junction, and before we knew it we were sitting having a quick bite at Newark Airport. We were delayed by about an hour, which was fine, since I hate early evening flights to Europe (we were scheduled for 7:30).

Although the plane was very full, I hit the jackpot: an aisle seat with a young, very chatty Japanese-American colonial historian at the window. She had an offer from Strathclyde, and they were flying her business, but the section was full and the airline had given her two seats! Among her other quirks was the fear that she would have to climb over me while I slept. So we traded places, and I slept pretty well, considering how early we left.

Customs was quick, our packs came early, and we were soon on the shuttle bus for downtown Glasgow. The driver dropped us near the Hotel Indigo–which predictably had no room for us so early in the morning. We had a coffee and a bite at a Costa down the street and wandered through the surprisingly busy main shopping area, Buchanan Street. Vodafone, which was reputed to have the best service in the Highlands, was open at 10, and we purchased two ten pound sims for my Windows Phone and the iPhone that Sue carried.

Although in a bit of a jet lag daze, we set our sights eastward, toward the medieval section of the city. The route lay alongside and through the University of Strathclyde, which seemed to be a lively, modern institution. The cathedral was much more than we bargained for: a real Gothic masterpiece, with elements of French and English Gothic combined.

The interior was particularly lovely, and the setting, above the river, spectacular.

A formal walkway leads across the river and up to the Necropolis, a magnificent burial ground for Glasgow’s Victorian elite.

Crowned with a statue of John Knox on a pillar, the cemetery is built up in layers around a hillside: the monuments are by Glasgow’s most prominent architects, including several by Macintosh. The views back over the cathedral and the surrounding city are memorable.

Our way back to the center took us through the Merchants City around George Square, the nineteenth century commercial expansion. Downtown Glasgow mixes some stately older forms with a great deal of rather shoddy modern architecture: much of it looks like French Lego building. But there is a very lively street life!

The Hotel Indigo was a tremendous bargain: a very stylish and very comfortable place. We collapsed for a 90-minute nap, and awoke feeling much better.

Our long afternoon loop took us up the hill to the Glasgow School of Art (Mackintosh); on a longer stay, we could take some interesting looking walking tours through the city with art students. The hilly area to the northwest of the central business district has some lovely stone terraces. We met an American artist, Todd Garner, and his wife on the street and chatted with them for a while. He has lived in Glasgow for 26 years, and teaches at Strathclyde. Interestingly, he has a painting (of Pinkerton of detective agency fame) in our hotel, which had commissioned a series on famous Glaswegians. They gave us some restaurant tips, and we headed steeply downhill and then back up again in Glasgow’s west end.

The sections of the west end closest to downtown, and especially down the hill from Kelvingrove Park, are rather posh and lovely.

We ate at Stravaigin, a terrific casual restaurant. Lots of fresh fish and a nice selection of cask ales.

We then strolled through the University of Glasgow campus, with its famous main building.

We walked back down off the hill through the really glorious Kelvingrove Park. We watched an older gentleman put his four collies through their paces, using three of them at a time as sheep. Probably the best trained dogs I’ve ever seen.

By the time we reached the hotel, I was ready for a wee dram and off to never-never land.

With the Full Scottish Breakfast safely stored away–eggs, sausage, bacon, blood pudding, haggis, mushrooms, tomatos, and beans–we were ready for anything. A quick walk brought us to an outdoor store, where we bought our final necessities–a gas cartridge and midge nets–and before we knew it we were at the Queen Street Station and waiting for the train to Milngavie, or “Mull-guy”. as the l0cals say Unfortunately, the train wasn’t ready for us: signal problems were causing cancellations. So we waited, and waited…and finally jumped in a cab. The cabbie was loquacious and very funny. He has been to the US fifteen times, and never left the Orlando city limits. “Michael Mouse” is his self-proclaimed best friend.

He dropped us right at the beginning of the way.

We hoisted out packs, adjusted our straps, and we were on our way. Did I mention that there was a steady rain? Not a deluge, but not sprinkles either, so we were wearing our rain shells and rain pants to start our walk. The first mile or so was through a public park alongside a stream, but we were soon in a lovely woodland carpeted with blue bells.

We probably set the world record for blue bell photos on this one day alone. This was totally level walking on a good footbed, and we were making excellent time, probably 20 minute miles.

After a couple of miles, the woods began to open, and we soon found ourselves in open country alongside Loch Craigiann and then a smaller loch, Carbeth, with holiday chalets on its shores.

There were not a lot of walkers about. We had been passed by three young guys planning to do the walk in five days, and otherwise failed to see much of anyone.

After a short road walk, we entered a farm lane between sheep pastures; this led over a rise, and suddenly we were fell walking, with tufted turf dotted with broom, gorse, and heather all around. This was the Campsie Fells, with stunning views. In front of us was the large and imposing thunderhead form of Dumgoyne, a prominent top that would remain visible until we were descending from Conic Hill the next day.

In the foreground was the small, forested cone called Dumgoyach, with a farm on the far side. This was lovely and even exciting walking, even in the heavy rain: it was what we imagined we had come for.

This interval was all too brief on the first day, however: once past the farm, we turned onto a disused railway embankment, and walked like an arrow for several rather boring miles accompanied by the noise of a major road to our right.

We were now about halfway to Drymen and feeling a bit waterlogged and beaten down. Beaten down enough that we decided to skip the tour at Glengoyne Distillery, since it was about 1/3 of a mile off the trail and we were getting rather hungry. This is a decision I now regret!

We were very glad to reach the Beech Tree Inn in Dumgoyne, right on the path, as the rain continued to pour down. As we walked onto the property we saw a lone figure huddled under an awning and eating his lunch. He said to us, tersely and in a decidedly un-British accent, that there were no tables inside. Which proved to be true. So, while we enjoyed a hot bowl of soup and a piece of crusty loaf, we had to join him in the chilly, damp space under the awning. We managed to extract the information that he was from Boston, that he was an actor who worked in the mailroom of a large corporation, and that he, too, was walking the Way.

Somewhat restored, we waited out a particularly hard shower and set off once again along the embankment. Luckily, the rail line soon left the road, and we went a bit deeper into farm country. Still flat, but a bit better. As we walked, the rain started to let up, and finally stopped altogether just before we crossed the road again. What a relief to stow the rain gear!

Walking through fields, we soon came to the little hamlet of Gartness, crossed a very old stone bridge, and started the longish road walk to Drymen. The country lane was actually very quiet, with really beautiful farms–on one of which we saw a sheep with border collie markings!

The lane undulated for a couple of miles, giving us great views back to the Fells and some suggestions of what was to come beyond Drymen. We soon passed the Easter Drumquhassie Farm, site of Drymen camping, and saw the village in the distance.

When we approached Drymen, it wasn’t exactly clear how to get there. We soon saw a path leaving the road and crossing a hill, and sure enough, there were the outskirts on the other side. We were about to ask for the Winnock Hotel when I saw it across the road, right on the small but charming village green.

We were both tired, but not knackered, and somewhat exhilarated that we had done so well on the first day. The hotel oozed character, with thick stone stuccoed walls, low ceilings, weathered beams, and several fireplaces in the common areas, and our room was delightful, with an old four poster bed–into which we collapsed for a well-deserved rest. This was the story of our trip: our legs, with so many miles in them, and with our packs bearing down on them, ached when we lay down. Miraculously, they were always fine the next morning. And the afternoon and night in Dryment was no exception.

I then went down to the bar and had a pint of the local ale, and Sue joined me for her first of what would be many appallingly bad wines. The bar was crowded and very convivial, though we seemed to be the only walkers.

We were soon ready to undertake an extensive tour of Drymen–little did we know that this would be the biggest place we would see until Kinlochleven! Down one lane with a row of shops was the supposedly superior Buchanan Arms, where we made a dinner reservation. Seeing busfulls of German tourists arrive, though, we canceled and went back to the Winnock, with its much more interesting menu. Dinner was perfectly good, and we were hungry!

A quick after dinner jaunt brought us to a viewpoint from which we could see a sliver of Loch Lomond.

Back at the hotel, we took a dram of whisky upstairs–my first Glengoyne 12, which I really liked–and we were sound asleep by 10 PM.

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 packing our bags, which, especially for me, took some effort on days where we expected rain. My pack just held what I was carrying, which meant some stuffing and cramming to get everything under the pack liner. I have to say that the system of pack liner plus dry sacks for our down pieces worked beautifully–although the dry sacks were overkill, since the pack interiors never even got damp.

At the Spar Market, where we laid in supplies for our first camp dinner, we ran into the guy from the Inn again. We told him that we were taking the shortcut up the road rather than return to the Way itself, and he replied that this might be a good idea, since there were suggestions that forestry work had closed the Way near Drymen.

The road took us on a long uphill amid sheep farms, and we finaly rejoined the trail at the crest, which was also the entrance to the Queen Elizabeth Forest, which sounded very promising.

As we turned into the forest, a couple came up the Way carrying daypacks–and we would see them several times that day and the next, and then again at Bridge of Orchy. We stopped to make a few adjustments, and we were passed by the guy from Boston…and, still in the forest, we passed yet another couple with large packs who we would see several times again in the next two days. This confluence of four walking parties would be one of only two times when we were in close proximity to more than one party, the other being when we emerged from the tiring section along Loch Lomond north of Inversnaid, and four different groups sprawled along the little beach on the Loch.

We soon met yet another frequent companion on our walk: a large section of extraordinarily ugly clearcut forest. it turns out that the “Forestry Commission” is not at all concerned with preservation, but rather with tree farming. We were walking through the first of what would be many conifer plantations, and this, one of the two biggest we encountered (the other, ironically, was on our last day as we approached Ben Nevis), had just been harvested.

Playing leapfrog with the other groups of walkers, we soon had our first views onto southern Loch Lomond. We crossed a couple of small burns, passed through a kissing gate, and found ourselves on an extensive and very impressive open moorland that stretched far into the eastern distance. It was bordered on the far left corner by Conic Hill, our first major climb of the walk. As we walked around, making a huge loop to the right, we saw a farmer on a motorized tricycle working with two or three collies, moving his herd. The walk through the moorland was extraordinary, with a lovely stream below us and old stone walls all around.

We were soon heading up Conic Hill, a climb of almost 600 feet which proved to be pretty gradual.

Emerging near the summit, the views onto the Loch gradually opened up, and we stopped several times to enjoy and photograph.

The walk down was much steeper than the walk up, so we were soon in deep forest again and making our way to Balmaha.

The Oak Tree Inn was packed–as was the whole town, since the day had turned intermittently sunny, and the Loch beckoned. We sat at a table outside and were soon joined by a rather odd older gentleman. We soon knew more about him than we really wanted to know. He was a U. Chicago trained mathematician who was now teaching “computer programming” at a college in Illinois. He was very anxious about finding where the trail left Balmaha, since he had gotten lost on the walk to Drymen (!) and had ended up following a controlled access road for more than half the way there. We showed him where to go and assured him that he couldn’t go wrong, and off he went. We were in the meantime eating a pretty good and very large cheeseburger with chips, since we were going to eat a cold dinner that night, and we were joined by the guy we had first seen the day before and then several times today. His name was John, he had grown up in Montpelier, VT, and he spent every one of his vacations on a walking tour, either alone or occasionally with a friend. It turned out that we wouldn’t see him for several days. Like many walkers, he had hired a company to make his arrangements: not just baggage service, but the booking of rooms in inns. So he was actually stopping in Balmaha and sleeping at the Oak Tree Inn. This made for a very short, 7 mile day for him, and meant that he would take nine days to walk the whole path. We would see him again at King’s House.

We were soon walking under lovely, scudding clouds and sun on a lane along the shore of the lake.

A way sign with a thistle soon directed us to the right and sharply upward over a hill. At the top, probably 200 vertical feet later, the signs stopped. Some sadist had thought that the climb was worth the view, because the trail then plunged back to the lane no more than 300 yards further along! The rest of the day consisted of lane walking interspersed with beach walks through campsites and some woods walking as we crossed small ridges that ran into the lake.

As we headed uphill on one of the woodsy sections, we caught up with the mad scientist, who joined us and jabbered on, coherently but with very random connections between the sections of his story: a slender female friend, a walk through Glacier by himself with bear bells chiming, songs from Brigadoon! It spattered a bit of rain and he stopped to put on rain pants, and we pressed on–hurriedly, it must be admitted.

When we emerged onto the road at Cashel Farm, I had been invigorated by the thought of a cup of tea that had been marked on the map. We saw an older couple walking their dog down a country lane, and I stopped them to ask if there was a teahouse nearby–which there wasn’t. But we had a pleasant chat and were soon joined by the mad scientist and the couple we had first seen early in the day and then again over lunch in Balmaha. They were German, and she was a good bit older than the younger man with his hair bobbed in back–unclear whether a couple or a family. They were planning to wild camp, which I explained wasn’t possible until beyond Rowerdennan, if then, and they hurried off, never to be seen again. This would also be the last time we were to see the mad scientist, and that worries us to this day. He was staying “one mile north of Rowerdennan,” which we took to mean Ptarmigan Lodge, but we don’t know if he found it, or whether he finished, or….

We popped into the little store at the Cashel Camping and Caravan site in hope of finding a cuppa, but no joy. As we rounded the corner back onto the lane, the gentlemen with whom I had first spoken popped out of the wood and asked whether we would join him and his family at their camper for that cup of tea. Keith and Sue were from a village near Manchester; he was a retired builder. His son worked in the facilities department at the University of Manchster, while his daughter-in-law was a primary school teacher. Their two kids were delightful: they served cookies and cakes as we sipped tea in comfortable chairs under the awning of their RV. They couldn’t have been nicer, and the kindness of strangers couldn’t have been more welcome–especially since they were all Man U fans!

After an enormously pleasant hour, we put our rubber to the road and were soon doing our last climb of the day around a big crag overlooking the lake. This really gorgeous stretch of oak forest was our introduction to Sallochy Bay, which, as we descended, proved to be a series of primitive campsites strung along the shore of the Loch.

We picked a nice one, pitched our little tent for the first time…and had our first midge attack, which drove Sue into the tent and me behind my midge net which, in combination with some bug dope on the backs of my hands, worked pretty well. The wind soon came up, it began to turn chilly, and the midges disappeared, leaving us free to sit by the loch munching on local cheddar, crackers, apples, and chocolate. We fired up the Snow Peak, which was soon roaring merrily, and we had a very nice cup of Starbucks Italian Roast.

We hadn’t been careful about our pitch–it had been too long since I had tented–and we slid downhill as we slept, our heads crammed against the tub of our little tent. I had imagined that I would be too hot, and started out with the bag as a quilt, and with my vestibule open. But the night turned very cold, and I kept waking up to zip more of the bag. I never got completely warm, but was never so awake as to get out and zip the vestibule. So we both had a less than optimal night’s sleep. That aside, though, the tent is quite wonderful. Yes, it is just big enough for the two of us and not a bit more, but, when pitched right, it is completely dry, completely silent, and very well ventilated. I love it!

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 descent through the trees with increasingly open views of Ben Lomond, which is the southernmost of the Munros and dominates the landscape for miles around.

The weather was very sunny and the air was vibrant with late spring. Once on the shore again, we wound our way north to the Rowardennan Lodge, a well-known and probably very comfortable hotel.

We were famished and really looking forward to a good breakfast…only to find the bar locked, and to hear that they had just stopped serving breakfast. The young man at the desk was kind enough to suggest that we go back and see if anyone was still cleaning up in the breakfast room. At first we were told that we were out of luck, but we must have looked desperate, because they agreed to let us serve ourselves from the muesli, fruit, yoghurt, and coffee that were left on the buffet. They then came out with fresh coffee, toast, and bacon and sausage left from breakfast. Desolation had turned to bounty! The young women who worked at the hotel were very pleasant, and we left 11 pounds lighter but with full stomachs and good cheer.

There isn’t much to Rowardennan: the lodge, some holiday chalets, a hostel in an old hunting lodge, and a beautiful war memorial set on the shore of the loch.

We walked past all that, and finally past the National Trust Bunkhouse at the trailhead to Ben Lomond.

The path was actually a fairly substantial dirt road that grew rougher as we rose away from the lake. This was a pretty unrelenting climb for a bit less than two miles.

I was a bit worn down by the top, and we sat for a view from a well-sited bench. Unfortunately, when we got up to continue, Sue somehow lost her reading glasses and the croaky that protected them.

After descending along the same road, we reached the loch side and thought, erroneously, that we were close to Inversnaid. The next three miles were very tough going: lots of small ups and downs as ridges and burns plunged into the lake, over very rocky ground, which meant lots of twisting, turning, bad foot plants, and even some scrambling.

In short, it was exhausting–though the walk was very beautiful. We had played leapfrog with two other groups, one a young couple who turned out to be Czech and who had camped beside us in their Husky tent at Sallochy Bay, and another, larger group of French men of various ages. Two of these were going very slowly indeed, probably because one of them had a foot injury or blisters.

When we reached the Inversnaid Hotel, there was simply no way that I had another six miles in me. I had planned the longest day’s walk over the hardest paths of the first half, and it had taken its toll. A quick recalculation suggested that an early halt wouldn’t throw too big a wrench in the works: we had planned two somewhat shorter days afterwards, between Inveraran and Strathfillan, and Strathfillan and Bridge of Orchy. Stopping now simply made for three 12 mile days rather than a long one and two short ones.

We looked into a room at the hotel, and were able to get the last one. The site of the hotel is wonderful, with a panorama of big mountains starting with The Cobbler on the opposite shore. And the hotel is ok: sort of fifties decor, a bit anonymous, but comfortable enough. We had lunch on the terrace in blustery weather and were soon joined by the others who had been walking the same path. After a refreshing siesta, we signed up for dinner, which was prix fixe: this meant one price for the tour bus crowd, alas. The food was edible but hardly memorable, but we didn’t care too much, and were in bed and asleep fairly early.

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 site for a wild camp alongside the lake, with a field of blue bells above and wonderful vistas to the other shore. If we had only known!

As the guidebooks had warned, the next four miles were very strenuous walking alongside the Loch. But the whole stretch was gloriously beautiful.

We passed “Rob Roy’s Cave,” an alleged hideout of the outlaw Rob Roy McGregor.

When we emerged onto a little beach about a half mile past Doune Bothy, we found another party sprawled out and relaxing; and we were soon joined by two more groups.

These four groups together was the biggest concentration of walkers we saw for the entire trip.

The flatlands behind the beach signaled the end of Loch Lomond for us.

We were soon walking up alongside Cnap Mor, a prominent crag that overlooks the northern end of the lake.

The trail wound its way over the fell and beside a small tarn, Dubh Lochan, and then kept to the heights in oak forests as the valley fell away. We had left Glenn Lomond and were about to descend into Glen Falloch. The pleasant descent through the woods finally brought us to Beinglas Farm, a farm that caters to walkers and offers not only campsites but wigwams, motel rooms, and food and drink.The soup was quite good, and pretty restorative, because the morning beside the Loch had taken it out of my legs. I stretched out on a bench in the sun and dozed for a good half hour before we started off again.

The walking through Glen Falloch wasn’t memorable. It was our first encounter with a military road, and the rather monotonous character of the wide path did little to relive the rather ordinary landscape of a river valley. When we reached the farm of Darrydaroch, we encountered the farmer leading a fairly crazed border collie toward the pasture.

After this, the walking improved greatly: we crossed first the river and then a major road and ascended onto the heights along the river’s left bank.

Here, moorlands soon gave way to a large and beautiful highland sheep farm, Keilator, bounded by an ancient six-foot wall that was an object of intense fascination for Sue.

We felt now that we had properly arrived in the Highlands.

We hadn’t yet learned of the clearances, and concluded that the land was too rugged and the soil too poor to sustain any more than these isolated, widely spaced habitations: it was interesting that every map gives the name of every farm.

Here, too, we encountered the fate of the working dog: the collies are kept in open kennels outside, and released only to work.

The wall eventually turned down into the valley as we continued to rise toward a low pass in the ridge that closed the glen; there we found a crossroads, with the lefthand path, the Way itself, leading toward Tyndrum, and the righthand path taking us to our B&B in Chrianlarich. Our legs were pretty done in by 13 miles of mixed walking, and we were dismayed to find that the path led steeply down to the village.

We did manage to survive, and, as we entered the village, we encountered our Czech friends, who had been the only people we had seen after Beinglas Farm. They had hoped to stay at the Hostel, but there was room only for women. We took them along to our B&B, Glenardran House, and they got the last room–which was obviously much more than they had hoped to pay. The landlady was rather distant at first, but gradually warmed up. And the room was just fine–though the bed was pretty lumpy. We had a nice view up the hill and it was very quiet.

Crianlairich is the halfway point: 48 miles in, 48 to go.

Both of us were unusually tired and our legs seemed shot. It wasn’t a crisis, but doubts had crept into both our minds–brought on by less than inspiring scenery and the cumulative wear and tear of the walk. We talked briefly about coming back to finish another year, but quickly rejected the idea. After our usual restorative siesta, we decided to brave the pub, the Rod and Reel. The food was actually OK–I had fish and chips, and Sue had roast chicken–but the space itself had all the charm and character of Princeton’s late and unlamented Carousel Diner. I had no complaints about the Tennent Ale, though–but Sue suffered through yet another glass of wine from Chile or Austrailia or South Africa.

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 good breakfast, we set out, a bit nervously, onto the most exposed part of the walk: the crossing of Rannoch Moor, which is always described as challenging. The hike starts with a long climb up to a ridge between Orchy and Loch Tulla. I was feeling very good and really enjoyed the walk as views opened backwards over Orchy to Beinn Dorain.

As we crested the ridge, we saw Loch Tulla directly below us and, to the right, the rising of the Black Mount, the high ground at the eastern edge of the Moor.

The clouds were very low today, so the summits of the Black Corries behind Loch Tulla were shrouded. We descended past the iconic lone conifer that graces so many pictures of the Black Corries; Sue’s back was sore and she went down the slope like a jackrabbit.

Down at the water, we de-packed long enough for Sue to check out the Inveroran Hotel, to which we want to return. Like King’s House, this is an 18th century drover’s inn.

We followed the road that rises gently around the end of Loch Tulla; we would probably encounter more walkers on this famous path than anywhere else on the walk, and we soon passed a pair of women with day packs, and were passed by two fast-moving solitary men. The old growth forest around Forest Lodge is very beautiful, but we were soon alongside an unsightly conifer plantation above Black Mount, the Fleming estate on the shores of the loch.

Once free of the plantation, the old cobbled road to Glencoe rises steadily onto the Black Mount. We stopped for a breather above the far end of Loch Tulla with extensive views onto the eastern reaches of the Moor.

We were soon in the broad pass between the big top Beinn Toaig and the smaller Meall Beag, and we began to put plantations behind us as the views opened to the left into the recesses of the Black Corries.

Before we knew it–captivated by the incredible scenery of the Moor stretching away, soggy and desolate, to the right–we were at Ba Bridge, where we had lunch and a long talk with a lovely older Scottish couple. The man was a walker and knew every path in the area.

From Ba Bridge the road rises about 500 feet to a saddle between the flanks of the White Corries and Beinn Chiorach, passing the ruins of the remarkably isolated Ba Cottage on the left.

The view back to the Black Corries is gorgeous, but, in the pass, the full extent of Rannoch Moor opens, dotted with innumerable lochs and lochans glinting blue, black, and all shades between in the sun. We also got our first glimpse of Kings House in the far distance.

We had had dramatic weather, with a few showers but mostly scudding clouds and patches of blue, but on the descent from the pass we had a real rain spell and had to put on our jackets, but not our pants. As the rain stopped, we walked around to the left as Buachaille Etive Mor came into view–a kind of spectacular high point of the whole trip.

The map had hinted that we would have to follow the Way all the way to A82 and then back up the road to the Glencoe Ski Area, but a side path took us across just below the center. We checked in but decided to leave our packs there and walk down to King’s House for dinner before walking back up and pitching the tent.   A cup of tea at the center–nicely done with light wood and tons of glass looking out at the Herdsman–set us up nicely for the road walk down past Blackrock Cottage, across the road, and down to the inn.

We settled into the gloriously atmospheric lounge bar and had a drink. The barman was a wonderful young guy from Tasmania, who was jobbing with his girlfriend across Europe for two years, and full of advice on what to see once we had a car. We also saw the young Czech couple for the last time–they had overslept at Orchy and arrived long after us, ready for the last long day to Kinlochleven.

We loved the atmosphere in the inn: a real camaraderie with the tone set by hikers and climbers. Against all expectation, the food was some of the best of the trip. We started with smoked salmon; Sue had a wonderful local brook trout and I had a terrific ribeye steak. I took my life in my hands and had a dram before walking back up the hill–rather more slowly than we had come down.

We set up the tent, Sue having picked the site. But she blew the orientation and we were again head at the downhill end, as we later discovered. With camp ready to go, we went back up to the lodge for more tea and warmth–it was quite chilly on the mountain–where other campers were also taking advantage of the light and the fire. A second dram there didn’t hurt me.

I decided to sleep with my head at the narrow, but uphill end, and it worked very well, especially since having Sue at the other end meant that there was lots of room. I slept very well, but she was bothered by the lack of a pillow and the constant downward sliding!

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 the ski road and A82 by 11:18–a two and a half mile walk, the last 1/3 uphill. We virtually trotted down the hill and deposited the bags in plenty of time. We really had to race back uphill, and I’ll admit that I overdid it–as I soon discovered. We were in plenty of time for the Scottish Citylink bus, though. We were shocked by the fare: 6 1/2 quid for a 25 minute ride! The difference between fares purchased at stations and travel agencies and on the bus is steep.

The road passes by the opening to Glen Etive, where the final sequences of the Bond Skyfall were filmed, by the Herdsman, and into the pass of Glencoe with the mountains rising increasingly precipitously.

Some absolutely incredible mountain scenery here–and we had bright sunshine to enjoy it. Many descriptions of the glen have it as dark and foreboding, which I can see under “normal” weather conditions.

We got off at the Visitor Center and had a quick look around, then started down the path toward the village. The path passes by some of the main sites of the Glencoe Massacre, which we really didn’t understand well at the time. Not far down the path I started noticing a pain in my left calf, and I was soon hobbling slowly. I had clearly strained it running up form the inn to the bus stop.

Glencoe village isn’t much: a mountain rescue station, lots of B&B’s, a small grocery, a cafe, and a Scottish Catholic church, which was just letting out, with the priest in full orange and purple regalia as we passed by.

We were very short on cash, and looking forward to restocking at one of the two cash machines in the village, the first since Tyndrum. Unfortunately, the machine at the village store was out of order. We had a very nice lunch at the little cafe, with good homemade soup and a nice piece of orange sponge before trying the machine at the one gas station in town.

I rested my leg near the bus stop while Sue tried–but she struck out. It was unclear whether the machine had a bad data connection or whether our debits were rejected, so I called PNC. I first spent ten pounds only to be cut off, then spent ten more pounds, this time reaching an agent, who had just gotten into our account after Sue remembered the $1000 deposit from Andrew Dechet we had just made–a guess at my paycheck and its source wasn’t good enough! Luckily, I had started by telling the guy the problem, because right after he got into the account I ran out of money again. I have to assume that he unblocked us, because the cards worked flawlessly for the rest of the trip, and we were a bit nervous, because we still had very little cash until we would reach Kinlochleven late the next day.

We were back at King’s House mid afternoon, and we got into our room–very, very basic but perfectly in keeping with the inn–and lounged around for a while before descending again to the bar, only to find John from Boston! I bought him a drink and we traded stories of the walk. He had not only used a baggage service, but had slept only in inns, which made for some short days–and, in two cases, for being ferried back and forth by taxi to the same inn when an inn further along was booked. Not how I’d like to do the walk–you would probably lose all sense of continuity–but to each his own.

We agreed to meet for dinner at seven. As we were chatting at the bar with the barman, we were talking about long distance walking in Europe and America, and were soon joined by a very voluble Scotsman of indeterminate age–perhaps 65, but, as we soon learned, he had suffered a heart attack, gotten into incredible shape, and may have been younger than he looked. He was a bit crazy, a mad outdoorsman who was up here from Bristol, where he lived, to do some mountain bike training for his attempt at the Continental Divide Mountain Bike Trail–2200 miles on logging roads from Banff to New Mexico! He had walked everywhere in Europe and was full of good stories. He ate with us (Sue had poached salmon and I had a venison burger) and we all bought a round, either of beer or of whisky.

A nice shower in the shared bath rounded out the day, and I slept like a log.

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 uphill in order to take advantage of a relatively low pass in the solid wall of mountains on the western side of the glen.

We set off with a nice group of English folk from Shropshire, two women in their forties and an older couple with a dog. They were walking the whole way, but one or the other of the older people always rescued the terrier and his stubby legs after a while, driving around in a car to the next stop.

As we made the gradual climb, there were spectacular views back over Rannoch Moor.

We lost touch with them on the Devil’s Staircase, the path up to the pass, as one of the older people slowed down.

The first stages are somewhere between gradual and steep, and as you approach the pass the trail turns to fairly steep switchbacks. It is a longish climb of about 1000 feet, and it felt good to reach the crest.

At the “summit” cairn we found a couple we had seen at King’s House: they were Vermonters who were warming up for the last of four legs of their walk through the length of the Pyrenees: 125 miles per year. Nice folks. We stayed a few minutes after they left, and as we were leaving a young couple with two dogs came up. One was a gorgeous and very unusual gray border collie.

With the exception of a couple of hundred yards, the last five miles to Kinlochleven is downhill.

As you walk, views open to Loch Leven and above it the spiky summits of the Mamores, the range between Kinlochleven and the Ben Nevis massif. The weather was very good, with consistently lovely views, and the first miles flew by.

The trail then passed by a large pumping station, and joined a rough road that plunged via a series of switchbacks into the valley. This was a very steep section and, as unpleasant as it was, we were glad we weren’t walking north to south: the climb out of Kinlochleven to the Devil’s Staircase is harder than anything on the south to north route.

The road actually took us further west than the village, and so turned back under the ridge we had descended. There was a bit of confusion as we approached civilization: the way continues across a bridge, but the village lies down a side trail–which we finally figured out. The entry isn’t pleasant, as you walk alongside a plant belonging to the Rio Tinto Alcan aluminum company. I have to say that the village itself is only a slight improvement, with rows of barracks-like terraces, presumably for the former workers. It is a magnificent setting, though, on Loch Leven amid high mountains. And it is the Scottish National Ice Climbing Center.

All ugliness aside, we were delighted to find an ATM that not only worked but accepted our cards. And so, stocked with cash, we descended on the local pub and had a bigger meal than usual–burger and fries–since we would be eating cold later that night. We were soon joined, of course, by John from Boston, who was staying in the rooms owned by the pub (which he pronounced the nicest of the trip).

Feeling good and restored faster than we had expected, we said our goodbyes and set out in search of the path.

This proved to be a bit dodgy, but, with the help of a very amiable older gentleman, we were soon on the rather steep slopes leading through a birch forest and up to the military road that runs through a long, high pass that would take us all the way to Glen Nevis . It was here that I made what was a fairly scary mistake: my calf had gone from irritating to painful, and I decided to take an ibuprofen. The pills had been in my first aid kit for at least five years, but seemed ok when I took them.

After about 30 minutes of climbing, we were soon engulfed in some of the best scenery of the trip. The Lairig Mor is a long, u-shaped high mountain pass that runs beneath the Mamores and bends around to the right in order finally to deposit the walker at the foot of Ben Nevis.

As you walk through gorgeous highland scenery, you look up sharply to the right to the peaks beneath which you pass. To your left in the middle distance is a substantial ridge with a series of sharp summits. And, towering over that ridge is the famous ridge walk along the western summits of Glencoe–reportedly the best ridge walk in the UK. Between the intermediate ridge and the Glencoe ridge lies Loch Leven.

The walk through the Lairig is some of the very best walking on the path. It is absolutely deserted, and you have an incredible feeling of being one with your surroundings. You pass a couple of long deserted farms along the way. The first, Tigh-na-sleubhaich, is particularly evocative.

The second, Lairigmor, gives some sense of how hard life was in these mountains.

We were feeling very good, and, although we had already walked about 12 miles, we were seriously thinking about trying to make it out that night. It was still early–not yet six–and we could actually walk until at least 11 if we had to. It is just that light that late in Scotland. We had about 12 miles ahead of us, but we reckoned that most of them were flat or downhill. We met a man with his two sons around 20 who had walked up from Glen Nevis; very interesting folks, with an American mother, and the boys dual nationals.

We all went on our way, and, about ten minutes later, I thought to myself “I don’t remember when I’ve felt this good.” Never a good idea. I suddenly felt very dizzy and had to sit down. My heart was suddenly jumping around in my chest, and I had a somewhat elevated pulse rate. I had no idea what was happening and was actually very anxious–as was Sue. After a bit of googling, she concluded that it was at least possible that I was having a bout of tachycardia as a reaction to the ibuprofen. Whatever it was, it, together to my reaction, was extremely disorienting. I thought we had stopped for twenty minutes, but Sue told me it had been an hour and a half.

After our rest, I did feel good enough to continue. I suppose the prudent thing would have been a return to Kinlochleven, but I refused to believe that I was actually ill, and we decided to walk a bit and see how I felt. Sue insisted on carrying both packs, and we walked a couple of gentle downhill miles before I tried to carry the pack again. Sue was carrying round about 35 pounds…or more than a third of her body weight.

That was ok for a while, but my heart started jumping around again, and Sue took the pack. After we had logged about 16 or 17 miles for the day, we came to the beginning of an enormous clearcut–with very little chance of finding a decent site for a wild camp. Since we were then very close to a country lane that served as an emergency exit from the trail–there were houses within a couple of miles–we started looking for a site and found a very nice one in a stand of old trees. Sue wasn’t wild about the amount of sheep shit on the ground, but it was otherwise perfect.

We did our best pitch of the trip. And since the weather was really warm and beautiful, we slept with both vestibule doors open. I was feeling a bit shaky, probably more from anxiety than anything else, but managed to eat a bit of cheese, cracker, and chocolate. Since, after the long breaks to get me back in shape, we had walked until 9:30, we were soon in bed and asleep.