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.