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.