Ramble
Quest - Around the Great Glen (Fort William, Glencoe).
After my Ben Nevis climb, I spent a few glorious days hiking about Glen Nevis: once up on the Marmores, and once up the water of Nevis, almost all the way back around to Kinlochleven. I stay at the YHA, which is OK. On the day I left for Fort William, formally finishing the West Highland Way, I'm hit with an ice storm that makes walking on the sidewalks of the town almost impossible. I see some soldiers going out on maneuver and feel sorry for them. I'm also extremely grateful for the kind weather I had on Ben Nevis and during my long hikes at elevation.
Fort William on a day of rainy sleet is spent waiting on the world's slowest internet connection at the library, poking about the climbing store, and visiting the eclectic West Highland Museum. In the library, a strange woman asks me if I believe in fairies. I honestly reply to the negative and luck out because I later see her ask someone else and then sprinkle them with sticky glitter "fairy dust" when they say "yes". The best parts of the museum detail the Jacobite rebellion of Bonnie Prince Charlie. I also spot a goofy display snippet saying that someone managed to get a car up on Ben Nevis in the 20's!
I randomly picked the bizarre Bank Street Lodge for bunking. My French roomate in the dorm and I are bemused by the Simpson's gambling machine, with hideously drunken images of Barney and Homer, in the common room. I can unequivocally state here that the UK has a much higher percentage of weird people working in its hostels and hotels than any place else in the world.
The fort and the castle ruins are both worth a quick look. I also enjoy a visit to the Ben Nevis distillery, where they are happy to give me a tour even though I'm the only one to show up at tour time. When the skies clear I can better appreciate the picturesque setting of the town, right at the junction of glens, lakes, and mountains.
I had the idea to continue my hiking on the Great Glen Way, from Ft William on up to Inverness, but only manage to get as far as Loch Ness. There are two reasons for this. First, it's pissing rain on me half the time. And second, the Great Glen Way, while pleasant enough, is a bit anti-climatic after doing the West Highland Way. It starts off with a lot of seemingly useless (at one point it literally takes you on a lap around a soccer field!) winding around residential Fort William before making its way over to the Neptune's Staircase, an interesting series of old locks that climb up to the Caledonian Canal. Then it mostly just follows the canal, rarely giving that lovely sense of wildness that you get on West Highland. It's not bad, but the Great Glen Way is probably better as a bike path than for hiking.
So, I turn back and bus over to Glencoe instead. Even by Highland standards, the area around here is impressively scenic. I still have rainy days and plenty of wind, but it's so beautiful that I don't mind it so much. I stay at the somewhat remote YHA, which is a nice enough (and dry!) base for walks.
All of this area, from Ft. William and Glen Nevis down to Glen Coe, have been used as location shots for many movies: Braveheart, Rob Roy, Kidnapped, Quest For Fire, Monty Python and the Holy Grail, the Harry Potter movies, etc. However, Glencoe is most infamous as the site of the horrific 1692 massacre of the MacDonald clan. The story is well worth looking into, as it has many slightly different versions and further repercussions. Scotland in general is very much aware of their local history, and perhaps nowhere more so that in the Highlands, and this definitely adds interest to traveling here.