Hiking at Glencoe

Hike 5 but typical weather for the week

The only 'group bit' of our trip to Scotland was this last week's guided hiking holiday we booked with HF Holidays at Glencoe in the Western Highlands.  Sheila and I are both big hiking fans but prefer to follow a leader who knows the trail and terrain and this company came highly recommended and therefore seemed to fit the bill.  Each night they gave a lecture previewing the next day's offered walks ("hiking" isn't a term they use here), usually 4 of similar lengths but differing strenuousness.

Loch Linnhe

In the morning we would eat breakfast at our leisure from 7:45am - 9am; collect our ordered sandwich and a grab bag of sweets and snacks for lunch, then board the appropriate bus sometime around 9-9:30 for the ride to our starting point, walk, then be bussed back in time to freshen up for dinner.  The first day we chose to walk along the shores of Loch Linnhe, which offered fantastic views of the water and its bays, as well as a little tromp thru the forest and a wee bit of hill at the end just to get our heart rate up.  We had a pub as a very civilized ending point so we all gathered around a warm fire with our brews (I'll leave which kind up to your imagination) to await our bus back.

The next two days were even soggier than Day 1.  We got wet from above and wet from below.  This day we chose a route for the views: looking down over Loch Leven and then over and into the glen behind; along a river and a bit of the Highland Way before ending in Linlochleven.  The initial ascent was perfect as the rain held off for our climb and some picture-taking but it soon fell in constant sheets causing the much of the trail to be boggy & muddy, with streams of water running freely down the path.  All eyes were focused solely on obtaining sure footing on higher ground; and, unless we were taking a break there were few opportunities to take in much of the views. 

Splashing along the West Highland Way

 

Tuesday was threatening to be below zero on the mountain tops with strong winds to boot so we played it safe and took the easy forest walk that stopped for morning tea(!), strolled to the base of Ben Nevis for a nice view, then descended to Fort William via a lovely glade of birch trees, a working distillery and an old castle ruin.  We finished once again at a cozy pub to wait for the others to finish to then bus home.

me and the Ben

I took my shoes off to wade thru this one!

Thursday and Friday the remains of Tropical Storm Leslie blew in for a visit and our forecast was to have "incessant rain" and winds up to 100 mph at the top of the mountains so all walks were rescheduled to lower elevations.  Thursday we again chose the shortest walk on another forest track to arrive in Fort William cold and miserable and 2.5 hours early for our bus.  We hopped on a local bus instead of waiting around and arrived back at the lodge in time for a nice swim & jacuzzi, a little nap and time to finally make a blog post.  We felt quite smug about our decision when the others trooped home at 5:45pm, leaving them only over an hour to prepare for dinner!

The poor leaders were scrambling by Friday to find hikes for us to manage in the poor conditions and only came up with 2 to choose from.  Actually, they were the exact same walk on The West Highland Way, it's just that the 'difficult' one started 3 miles further down the road.  We took the milder hike and stepped right into the fury of the wind as we began our climb up Devil's Staircase to the top of the hill.  I guess-timated it to be blowing a steady 20-25kts with gusts easily up to 40kts+. 

The first third of the hike was all ascent, then as we rounded the corner to descend the rest of the way  we were immediately pelted in the face by the horizontal rain, and staggered to maintain our balance in the force of the gale.  Down, down, the wet rocky trail until we found a sheltered bit of road where miraculously the rain petered out long enough for our us to have our soggy lunch. (I thought my water bladder had leaked in my backpack but the huge puddle of water I found inside was just from the rain seeping in!). 

 
The wind blew the rain away in spurts for the rest of the hike so we had a semi-manageable finish to town.  I told mom, "it was a good thing we paid to be here today because there's no way I would have done it voluntarily!".  However, sitting in our cozy pub awaiting our bus when it was all done, we were able to look back at the day and actually say we were glad to have done it.  And even gladder it was over!