WHW Day 6: Kings House to Kinlochleven

I loved waking up in our little hobbit hut and seeing this:

How fantastically eerie!  Somehow, the foggy cloudy days were so much more interesting than the warm and sunny.

I did spy some black grouse on the moors.  They nervously darted away, making all manners of squacks.

Since the cafe at the ski lodge didn't open until 9 and we wanted to be well down the trail at that late hour, we walked back to the King's House hotel and took our coffee and carbs there.  What a place: in the light of day, the waitstaff looked rough.  Hungover, scabby, bedreadlocked and bruised. We did not linger.  

Today was the day that had caused much anxiety in my gut when I was planning this whole trip: a section called the Devil's Staircase in which the road builders had to somehow get a military up and over.  Never mind that, a look at the elevation map made my heart flutter:

I was fairly certain a dramatic helicopter rescue would be needed and that I would be the laughingstock of Scotland hiking lore for eternity.

I am the queen of random bouts of vertigo when it comes to hiking in the hills.  When it strikes, I drop like a stone and get tunnel vision, completely helpless to move my limbs forward.  Knife-edge ridge walks are out of the question, as is steep scrambles.  I might be able to get up them, but going down is a story that can not be told.

Still...we saw a lot of old people on the trail in amazing shape...people in their 70's.  We saw a lot of unfit people on the trail- we passed them in the morning, and if we were being lazy, we'd pass them again after lunch.  Good for them, they looked like they were in pain a lot of the day, but the ability to keep going is really the only skill you need here.  The trail so far had been easy- aside from the one scrambley part around Loch Lommond, there was very little challenge in a navigating a wide, well-worn track.  The weather had been fantastic.   I'm pretty sure I would be fine.  Still, that gnawing worry was almost as bad as the vertigo itself.  

This to me sums up the romance associated with Scotland.  The moody dark morning, the mysterious moors, the lonely bit of trail.  It was heaven, I tell you.

Meadow Pipit

I do spend a great deal of my time stopping and observing everything around me.  If you hike with me, you will be getting quite a few short breaks.  Look at the colors of these mosses!  I don't think I've seen such vibrant colors outside maples in autumn.

A lonely croft, long abandoned, was the one sing of humanity we could see.  That and the busy A84 road cutting down the valley to Glencoe.

At the base of the Devil's Staircase, there was a car park and swarms of people were making their way up this section of trail.

Now I got the name:  It was a devil to build this thing.  It was a well-engineered bit of trail, with perfect S-curves and banked turns.  Remember, this was a military road, and getting horse and cart over a hill like this would have been a pretty big deal.

Me though?  Nah, it posed no challenge at all.  I had to stop to catch my breath a few times, but other than that, I was up and over before I even knew it.  How anticlimactic!  Devil's staircase, you can not beat me.

Helicopter rescue diverted, we headed down into the next valley to Kinlochleven.

This was the largest elevation drop of the trail- we basically lost all the elevation we had gained all week, and would end the day at sea level.

This was by far our shortest day, mileage-wise, with a little over 10 miles to do.  Ah, I've reached the point where I can think a tenner day is a cakewalk.

Kinlochleven used to have an aluminum smelting plant, but now it's just an outdoorsy base camp.  The huge amount of water used in the plant had to be piped in from a reservoir over the next mountain, so a system of pipes and pumps kept us company for most of the rest of the walk.  The trail was a wide dirt road the whole way down as it was how heave trucks would get up and over; easy going, but quite uninteresting if you are on foot.  

Ah, but the beauty of all that elevation loss is that we were once again in the brambles.

We actually got to the pub before our bags did that day, and made some friendly chatter over a pint before exploring the town.

The former smelting plant?  Part of it was turned into a climbing center, with climbing walls reaching the ceiling, and uniquely, an ice climbing wall.  It was an huge walk-in freezer that you could shimmy your way up with ice axes and crampons.

The town itself was just orderly and neat, and we restocked supplies at the first grocery that we've seen in days.

This was also the night of the referendum vote.  We had seen graffiti and signs everywhere all week, and we knew we firmly in "yes" territory here.  It was all anyone could talk about.  

After a shower and a change of clothes, we decided not to have dinner at the pub, but at another place more than a mile away, just to have something to do.  It was nice to see the town and we found a trail that lead to a waterfall, so we hiked around in our flip-flops for a bit.

They actually had a "via ferrata" here and you could get outfitted to climb up the cliff to the top of the falls.

Me, I was content to sit at the deep pool at the bottom and give my feet a nice soak.  Remarkably, after 76 miles on the "official" trail (and many more off the trail), we had nary a blister between us.  My feet were tender and I had developed kankles over the miles, but we were in surprisingly good shape.  Much better than at this point when we were doing the Coast to Coast, but I'm sure the brutal heat and heavy packs had something to do with that.

We did enjoy some spectacular views with our evening meal, and a bit of sticky toffee pudding as well.  Earning dessert is something I look forward to every hike.

The worst part of the day was an empty dram.

WHW day 5: Bridge of Orchy to King's House

I continue to marvel at how much a sleep will regenerate you.  Although my feet were a bit sore from the beating, I was ready to get up and go as soon as the sun came up.  While I wasn't as limber as I was on day one, I wanted nothing more than to keep going down the trail and really looked forward to it.  

And yes, there was a Bridge in Orchy.  It was built by the English as part of their military road on the way to Fort William.  

I would have been content to stay here for another couple nights and battle some of the Murnos in the area.  It was beyond lovely.

We soon left the A84 and began the climb through a pine forest up into the wilderness.  Today was an easy 12 miles to the next hamlet of Kings House.  It ended up being my favorite day on the trail.  The blazing hot sun didn't hurt either.

Seriously!  Everytime I've been to Scotland, I've gotten a lot of clouds and drizzle.  Never ever ever was there a strong sun in the sky.  It was magic, and the locals we encountered expressed puzzlement while fumbling for their dust-covered sunglasses.

The trail followed the old military road, which was wide and well-traveled.  Soon it turned into an old drover's road and we followed the cattle track into the remote highlands.

Although the trail is as well-waymarked as you can get, we still carried two maps, a compass and although we didn't depend on them, I had OS maps uploaded onto my phone with the app running to track our progress from space.  The fact the track was so well worn and well marked meant we really progressed much faster than we had on the Coast to Coast where we had to stop at every intersection to check the maps.

Even though we were gaining a lot of elevation, there was no wind at all.  It was almost uncomfortable.

We made really good time and stopped by a tiny Loch to have lunch.  All around us, hikers had like thoughts.  12 miles isn't a lot to hike and everyone just seemed happy to walk it lazily, and finding a nice flat rock to nap on took priority.

But ah, those mountains!  The official trail always took the easiest way through them, and I had an urge to go up and over every single one.  Our "Not the West Highland Way" book encouraged us to, but a lot of these didn't have footpaths and it required you to pick your way up through the moors, which was not an easy thing to do.

We did bump into a rather misguided Israeli couple who were hiking with a giant umbrella and winter gear.  I have no doubt they would be able to survive in the desert much better than I could, but it was kind of giggle-inducing to see someone hiking with such an impractical item.

It's not just because it was so sunny, but with rain comes wind, and here that would fold the sturdiest of brollys into a useless tangle of broken spokes.

We soon climbed up and over and soon we saw the ski resort.  There is only one hotel in King's House, and it was fully booked, so I had found that the tiny ski resort had a campground.

Oh, this is "glamping".  I ended up loving staying there more than any other place on the trail.  

They called them "hobbit huts" and I want to live in one.  They were well-built and cozy, with three bunks with mattresses.  These were hooked up to electricity so they had a light, a kettle and a space heater, but I found that once you closed the door it was cozy enough at night.  You just have to bring a sleeping bag, and I was just thrilled with our home for the night.

Also, our views:

 The campground had coin-op showers, and after a quick one, we decided to walk an extra 2 miles down the hill into King's House to the pub rather than have dinner at the cafeteria at the campground.

It was kind of stupid, we should have just stayed put and rested our feet, but the evening was just so nice, we couldn't have thought of anything else to do except to go for a walk.

A sunset on the high moors on a clear eve was just magic.  The sounds of the black grouse haunted the hillsides, and since everyone else was settled in for the night, the two mile walk to the pub was empty of other hikers.

The loneliest basketball hoop:

After a dram and a pie, we were walking a dusky trail back up the hill to the ski resort.  A cold mist was settling into the glens.  It was worth this little 4-mile jaunt just to have a peaceful constitutional.

This video isn't mine, but check out the sounds of the black grouse.  It's just outer-space worthy, and although they were hard to spot, you could hear them all over the place.  

Tomorrow:  we tackle the Devil's Staircase.