August 26 - This hotel was the best $$$ spent on the trip so far. A great night's sleep while staying warm and dry! It included a wonderful breakfast with yogurt, juices, sausage, bacon, eggs, potatoes, rolls, jams, ... so we didn't really need to eat much more as we hiked all day, starting a little after 8am.

Having Internet all along the trail so far has made modifying plans easier. And, with the rough and changing weather, we've been making changes.

For example, the forecast is good today but over an inch of rain tomorrow morning. So, we've decided to hike as far as we can today and stay in our tent tomorrow until the rain let's up (hopefully) and then have a short hike to some paid lodging to dry out again.

So, today we hiked for 10 hours and covered 18.5 miles. The weather was relatively terrific and we actually got to see some of the countryside.

I was expecting the WHW to be more open on highlands than it has been so far. Today's trail all along the east shore of Lac Lomond was extremely rocky and slow in a tight forest and much of yesterday was in forest as well. Lots of scrambling over big rocks today rather than walking, much left over mud and water from yesterday, but it wasn't raining.

Plenty of scenic little waterfalls along the way and some much larger ones tumbling down the hills on the far side of the lake. We also passed quite a few old ruins, some covered in blankets of moss, making me wonder who lived here, how long ago, and what they did.

We met some local guys outside a bothy and chatted a bit. We took a look inside and decided we'd have to be pretty desperate for shelter to stay in one, but it would be better than being stuck in a storm.

After the very popular Bienglas campground where most of the folks we met today stopped, we finally got out of the woods and had a couple hours hiking across open spaces. We stopped to set up our tent at about 6:15 p.m. on a fairly flat but soggy spot on a hillside covered in grazing sheep. A couple came by to investigate us.

We read that midges are a nuisance on the WHW but it took until this afternoon to find them. They are out in force this evening and it started raining just as we got the tent up.

So, with midges about and rain falling, we're skipping any cooking and just having a snack supper. We'll probably be here for about 16 hours.

Check out my current location on the map.