Ramble
Quest - West Highland Way -- Part Two: A Grand Finish.
Above Inverarnan the Way starts out easy and scenic, with rapidly flowing streams, moss covered woods, and panoramic views of snow-capped mountains. However, for about four miles below Crianlarich I get bogged down in a terrifically muddy (with plenty of cow shit mixed in) exposed slope in rainy weather. There's no place to hide and nothing to do but trudge and slog. Just getting back into a forest is a cause for celebration.
After the forest and some chapel ruins, the Way roughly follows the railway, winding around some striking hills, most notably Beinn Odhar, a favorite of the Gaelic poet (how do you get to be an illiterate poet anyway?) Duncan Ban MacIntyre. I spend the night at Bridge of Orchy, the scene of tales by Walter Scott and Robert Lewis Stevenson, in an unusual little hostel directly on the railway platform. It's compact, but tidy, and it has the three things I'm most craving: light after 4pm, a shower, and a place to make lots of tea.
Above Bridge of Orchy I'm soon up on the exposed Black Mount, at the edge of the infamously desolute Rannoch Moor. This is the place shown in "Monty Python and the Holy Grail" after they pass beyond the "bridge of death". It's also one of those sections of the West Highland Way that would be absolute hell to be caught in a winter storm. Fortunately, I have my clearest day yet and the views are fantastic! It's a wild and starkly beautiful area. I scale a small hill off the Way to visit the lonely cairn that marks the spot where Peter Fleming, the hyper-adventurous older brother of author Ian, died. Not a bad final resting place!
I camp outside the Kingshouse Hotel, an area icon since 1708. Many a famous adventurer stopped here, and in its earlier years nearly everyone described this as one of the worst hotels on the planet. Of course it's oddly suspicious that a large hotel was built here so long ago, in such a remote area with only drovers and the occassional Victorian author or climber for business. The explanation is that the hotel was a front for extensive smuggling operations, primarily in salt, and a notorious base for cattle thieves. I'm happy to eat here and have a few beers in its spacious and practically deserted dining room. I'm shocked when I return to my tent -- still early, it's only about six -- to find it covered with ice! I sleep in my damp little igloo and vow to get my stuff dry the next day.
I can better appreciate the beauty of the area surrounding Kingshouse in the morning. Deer graze along the base of the lovely mountains and some air force jets streak low overhead, as I hike along A82 for a bit before climbing up the Devil's Staircase to the highest point on the Way. It's tough going with my wet and overly heavy pack, but not nearly as difficult as the name suggests, although I suppose in rainy weather it would indeed be diabolical. The views for me are gloriously clear at the top. Then it's down, down, down, passed the long water conduits of the Blackwater Reservoir, to the interesting town of Kinlochleven, where all that water feeds the smelly aluminium plant that dominates the edge of town.
I like Kinlochleven though, with its picturesque location, nestled into scenic hills at the edge of long Loch Leven. I decide to linger a day, basing myself at the excellent Blackwater hostel, and happily spend my b-day walking along the loch, tramping up to the top of Grey Mare's Falls, and wandering out to the dam, enjoying the views and the ferns and mosses that decorate the rocky woodlands.
The next day back on the trail brings fabulous weather, perfect for the climb up out of Kinlochleven and the great view back. I head through a high valley that has some farmhouse ruins, then descend across a scenic ridge before popping into a forest. The official end of the West Highland Way is at a non-descript intersection in Fort William, but every hiker knows that the true finish is at the top of Ben Nevis, the highest mountain in the UK.
At this time of year the path to the top becomes treacherously icy even fairly low. I fall once and nearly slip a dozen times. I spot some cute white rabbits up high in the rocks. Once the ice and snow line starts, everyone else I see straps on crampons and pulls out the ice ax. Both would be handy, but I'm able to manage without. Ben Nevis certainly feels like a much bigger mountain than it is at the top! My beautifully clear views on the way up quickly start to dissipate though. In an incredibly short time my descent becomes completely fogged and I lose the way. Much later I'll read an article in a climbing journal relating stories of how dangerous Ben Nevis can be to descend and nod my head in understanding. It's very easy to get lured into some horribly steep chasms, with a dangerous fall forthcoming. Fortunately, I keep my wits about me and safely make my way back to the trail and down.