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Journal: |
The day didn't start too well. Firstly, I sneaked quietly
out of my bunkhouse dorm shared with two Spaniards at 7:10am,
planning to wait in the hotel lounge until breakfast was served at
7:30am. The hotel was locked up and the midges outside were
horrendous, so I was chased back to the bunkhouse where the
Spaniards were still asleep to read my book for 20 minutes. At
7:30am I returned to the hotel and had a leisurely breakfast,
expecting Ian to arrive around 9am. When I finished breakfast
and walked back to the bunkhouse at 8:30am, there was Ian waiting
outside feeding the midges. I sent him into the hotel foyer
and hurriedly finished packing before we started walking at 8:45am.
Then, we were talking so much we missed the first turn and walked
about 500m before realising our mistake and retracing our steps.
After that, the day went fine.
Once again it was a perfect day for hiking. Patchy cloud,
cool temperatures and almost no wind. After an initial climb
we reached a crest revealing expansive views across mirror calm Loch
Tulla, in a wide valley backed by steep treeless hills. This
was to be the pattern all day as the West Highland Way climbed
gently around the sides of mountains and over cols. There were
some particularly striking mountains, such as Buachaille Etive Mor
(1022m), and some almost perfectly symmetrical U-shaped glacial
valleys. Ian had been climbing in the area in the past and
could name the mountains and tell stories about them, which added
another dimension. Ian keeps fit running mountain marathons
and we maintained a good pace, walking to noon without a break.
There were quite a lot of other walkers on the trail, many of them
from the Continent, but the scale of the valleys and mountains still
frequently made us feel small and isolated. The only downside of the
morning was that on some occasions the still conditions encouraged
biting flies that were quite annoying.
We stopped for lunch soon after 2pm at the bottom of the Devil's
Staircase, the major climb for the day, and it was cool enough in
the strong breeze that had sprung up for me to put on my sweater
while we ate. However, climbing the Devil's Staircase, a
vertical gain of about 275m up a reasonably steep and zig-zagging
trail, soon had us very warm again. As we started the climb, a
group of "lads" (a loud group of about a dozen 20+-year-olds),
started right behind us, laughing, shouting, joking and swearing,
and were soon right on our heels. Ian maintained a steady
pace, with me right behind and as the elevation climbed the
laughing, shouting, joking, swearing and number of "lads" rapidly
diminished until we reached the top with the nearest some 100m
behind. Experience beats youth again. The view ahead of
us from the top of the climb was spectacular, with another range of
high mountains ahead and a large dam to our right. From there,
we had a long and draining descent down a rocky trail that gave us
both sore feet and tired knees before we reached Kinlochleven at
5pm.
We quickly found the bunkhouse where I had booked us for the
night and were given a three bed room with ensuite for ourselves and
it even had a TV. Luxury for £14 each. After we had
showered and rinsed out our gear, we walked a few hundred metres to
a pub where we had dinner, chatted and watched the Spain v Honduras
game. Both of us pleasantly tired from a long walk through
spectacular country in excellent weather. As the evening wore
on the pub filled with walkers we had seen during the day, and it
was quite busy and noisy.
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