Hiking Dude Blog

September 1 - Climbing Ben Nevis (another guest post by Kelly since Hiking Dude has caught a cold and is feeling tired out)

Last night we stayed at the Glen Nevis campground. It was huge with large numbers of campers in camper vans, motor homes, huge tents and small tents. There were many amenities and we were able to wash and dry most of our clothes. There must have been lots of moisture in the air last night because our tent was filled with condensation this morning.

The campground reception folks were very gracious and allowed us to leave our big packs with them while we climbed Ben Nevis (10.5 miles round-trip). As we walked past the youth hostel, we once again saw our Belgium friend, Toya, waiting for her taxi. Based on our experience on this hike, I'm pretty sure we'll see her again in the future!

We decided to take the steeper shortcut for the first part of the hike instead of the longer, more gradual trail. We learned later that the locals call that route 'heart attack hill.' It was steep, but again our hill training paid off. The first part of the trail was made of stacked stones and was amazing. Farther up the trail it was mostly rock and gravel.

Also, farther up the trail it become very windy and much cooler. There were times when we were hiking straight into the wind. It was a challenging hike, and took us about three hours to hike to the top (1,345 meters). There were lots of falling down stone structures at the top. The hike down went well, but seemed to take just as long. We had to be cautious not to slip on the loose gravel and rocks (but we both did).

Hiking Dude counted just about 500 people on the trail with us today. When we got to the portion of trail with the stacked stones, we kind of ran down to save our knees from the pounding. When we got to the turn off to 'heart attack hill' we met and spent time visiting with an 84 year old man. It was interesting hearing his stories of hiking Ben Nevis and other places around the world. We retrieved our packs, ate dinner and walked to our B & B for the night. Tomorrow we take the train to Stirling.

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August 31 - We reached the end of the West Highland Way at about 2:30!

It was beautiful weather for our last trail day and a very nice walk over open highlands past the ruins of ancient sheep farmer homesteads.

The last few miles were a monotonous downhill through forest on a very easy road to Fort William, but it didn't take too long.

We visited the West Highland museum (nothing about the trail), got some food, and then took a bus 2.5 miles back up the trail to the Glen Nevis campground at the base of the Ben Nevis mountain for the night. Tomorrow, we'll hike 4,400 feet up to the summit (along with 1,000 others since it's a nice weekend).

We did hike past a rescue team working on an injured hiker on the trail. Seems he took a fall and injured his leg. The trail has been rough and rocky in many places so I expect it happens often.

After our first night on the trail, half of my backpack's waist buckle had slipped off the belt and was missing. Never did find it so I've been carrying all the pack weight on my shoulders. Walking through town to the end, I stopped into three outdoors stores before one finally had replacement buckles! So, now it's fixed.

Highlight of the day was arriving at our spot to set up our tent and seeing Eva from Germany and Toya from Belgium right there. We've run into them many days along the trail, always expecting it will be the last time. But, this time it probably will be.

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August 30 - The sun FINALLY peeked out and the rain took a break. Today's hike of 10 miles from Glencoe Mountain Resort to Kinlochleven gave us many opportunities to enjoy the beauty of the mountains and valleys, but the most beautiful of all was meeting Skye and Jack who had just gotten engaged at the highest point on the WHW (1850 ft). We celebrated with them and took some pictures before continuing down the other side of the mountain. Skye and Jack, if you read this, here's some advice from the hikers who've been hiking together for forty years. Listen to each other, be flexible, assume positive intent, forgive quickly, laugh and have fun!

The 800+ foot hike up the Devil's Staircase to the highest point was so much easier than we had anticipated. Our daily training of hill climbing with our packs on prepared us well!

The Devil's Staircase is a long series of switchbacks over a pass from one valley to another, built as a military road. It's amazing the amount of manual effort out into these roads that now make great trails.

There was a long downhill slog to get to Kinlochleven, but we took it slowly. Overall, today's hike was easy and relaxing.

We arrived in Kinlochleven early in the afternoon and bought some lunch food to enjoy in a nearby park. We walked around the entire town and then returned to Blackwater campground to use their really nice showers. We've never been this clean on a long distance hike before!

Kinlochleven sits nearly at sea level, but we have to climb over another pass into another valley to reach Ft. William on the sea. Tomorrow morning starts with a long 1,100 foot climb but it won't be as steep as this morning's.

After our late picnic lunch, we weren't hungry enough to make a meal this evening. But, we did eat a caramel brownie dessert that was left in the 'hiker box' here at the hostel/campground. People leave stuff they don't want and it's free to anyone.

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August 29 - There was a lull in the rain when we woke up at 6:30 so we took advantage of it by packing up and started hiking a bit after 7:00. The rain started up again right away but at least the tent and gear was all relatively dry.

The forecast has more rain all day and tapering off this evening to make way for three nice days. So, the plan is to hike just 8.5 miles to the Glencoe Mountain ski resort where Kelly was able to find a 'pod' for the night. Then, we'll have three days of longer hikes with nice weather and camping.

Today's walk was probably 50/50 rain for the 3.5 hours we were on trail. The terrain was open and rolling with hills around. The trail was very easy walking with just the usual flooded spots to navigate. We're following an 'old military road' built in the 1700s by the British government so forces could be deployed more rapidly if there was a Jacobite uprising.

Even though the views were still quite limited, this was what I was expecting when looking forward to a highlands hike. We could see it over the valley at times and we passed through miles of peat bog and heather.

The Scottish government has some big peatland restoration projects under way to restore some of the drained or over grazed peat areas. This is important because the peat is a huge carbon storage, natural environment, and sponge to help with flood reduction. We hiked through an area where a couple backhoes were working the ground in one of these projects.

Just as we approached our goal for the day, the sun peeked out and gave us a wonderful rainbow which was my highlight. Since we arrived at our destination before noon, we had a very lazy afternoon sitting in the ski area cafe waiting for our check-in time. It was nice, but I didn't care for the haggis and venison burger we ordered - no more haggis for me.

This evening, after nice hot showers and one of our trail meals for dinner, we found a couple trail friends from a few days ago. They are from Wisconsin. We chatted with them, an Englishman, and an Irish so it was a great evening.

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August 28 - Guest post by Kelly (Mrs. Dude).

Hiking Dude knows that what I hate more than anything is being wet and cold. Since we've had mostly cold, rainy days in Sweden and Scotland, I revised our WHW schedule a bit to give us a chance to dry out after rainy hiking days.

We've been camping every other night, and staying someplace dry (like a camping pod or hotel room if we're lucky) the other nights. Our days are shorter (hopefully less time in the rain) and we are trying to time our hiking hours to avoid the worst of the rain. We have three days left to hike and two of the days seem like they may be sunny(ish) according to Google.

Last night we stayed in a pod in Tyndrum where we rigged up a clothesline to dry everything out. We were also able to wash and dry some clothes! This morning we headed out by 7:30 a.m. because the morning weather prediction looked dry.

The trail from Tyndrum to The Bridge of Orchy was the easiest yet! We easily walked the 7 miles in about 2.5 hours. The trail wasn't as rocky or muddy or blocked by puddles as on previous days. The only thing slowing us down were the sheep posing for photos along the trail. Finally, Hiking Dude said, 'No more sheep photos!'

We stopped for a scone with cream and jelly, and something hot to drink at The Bridge of Orchy hotel and enjoyed relaxing and visiting with fellow hikers for about an hour. Then we headed out on the last couple of miles, up and over a hill and down again into Inveroran. We arrived by about 12:30. It rained during this part of the hike, but not too hard. The hill climb felt easier than we thought it would. All of the daily climbs, with our packs, on the local ski hill really helped our endurance!

I tried to get a room at the Inveroran Inn (actually Inveroran is just this inn and a convenience shop), but they were full, so we planned to wild camp just down the road, and then return for a nice dinner later in the evening. We found a great spot near the river to set up our tent, and the midges loved it also! Even though we were trying to quickly set up our tent in the drizzling rain, we dug through our packs to don our bug suits! Once the tent was set up, we walked up to the convenience shop to have a coke and hang out.

Then back to the tent to hang out and get unpacked. (Way too much hanging out for hiking dude, but he was a great sport!). Then at 4 pm we put on our 'nice' clothes and went to the Inn's bar to hang out until our 6:15 reservation. Luckily, we were offered an early table which we eagerly accepted.

Our meals were amazing - beautiful and delicious! I had lamb and Hiking Dude had snapper. If you have the opportunity to stay or eat here, do it! The owner and staff were very friendly and helpful. We made it back to our tent before the rain started and now we are in for the night and planning on a rainy (but short) day of hiking tomorrow.

There are six other tents here now as it becomes dark. For deer just visited, eating the grass and ignoring the people. Two of them have huge antlers!

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August 27 - We woke (after fitful sleep) to heavy rain and strong wind. It actually was just more of the same from all night long.

Due to the weather, we changed our plans and only have 7.5 miles to walk today to the next small town with an opening at a campground with a 'pod'. This is a shed with beds and heating in it. Not very fancy, but a place to dry out and stay warm overnight.

As the wind gusts grew stronger while we were waiting/dozing this morning, a tent stake pulled out of the rocky, saturated ground - that was an exciting, wet couple of minutes to get it fixed.

A few more hours of waiting for the weather to subside and we packed up at about noon even though it was still raining. We did miss some brutal wind and rain, but we still had plenty of rain, overflowing streams, and mud all along our hike.

Not much to share, but we did see a few interesting things. We walked through an extremely mossy forest, passed a lot of heather, and saw more ancient rock fences and ruins.

Probably the most interesting was walking through what supposedly was the site of the last big defeat for Robert the Bruce before he went into hiding for 2 years.

Here at the lodging area, we washed clothes and took really hot showers. Then, a short walk to the only restaurant in town for an ok meal and we're back in our 'pod' drying gear and looking forward to a longer, rainy hike tomorrow.

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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.

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August 25 - Rain. That's about all there is to say about today.

It was raining when we got up and still raining 9 hours later when we reached our refuge for the night. We hiked for 7 hours and covered almost 16 miles to reach the Rorwardennan Hotel. Since we knew it was all rain, we've opted for a dry, warm spot for the night.

In the morning, we climbed the trail over Conic Hill which has wonderful views - when it's not stuck in a cloud. We did see sheep and heather and got to walk on a brand new rock trail under construction on the hill. It was a lot steeper than it looks!

After reaching the hotel, I enjoyed a long hot shower and now have clothes hanging all around the room drying overnight. We had dinner in the nextdoor bar - the steak pie was good.

Took advantage of public buses and trains to get from Edinburgh to a suburb of Glasgow called Milngavie to find the start of the West Highland Way. Many backpacks got off the train and started up the trail after all the selfies, but we had a quick subway sandwich lunch and then started hiking north at noon. Very busy trail for the first 4 miles closer to town with hikers, runners, and bikers, but it soon thinned out.

Forecast is over 1.5 inches of rain over the next few days, but today we only had a few cloud bursts and many stretches of spotty sun.

An easy 12 miles to Drymen Camping where we set up at around 5pm. We weren't sure where we'd stop today, but it had started to rain just as we reached this campground and they had one spot left so we took it.

We spent a few hours chatting with other hikers from Germany, Belgium, and England and that was the highlight of the day. There was also a begging chicken that is used to pecking up bits of food that campers drop, so she kept us company while we made our dinner.

There really wasn't much in the way of sights or scenery - lots of forest, rolling hills, and bigger hills on the distance. A lot of sheep, some cows, and narrow country roads made for a nice walk. We also picked a few blackberries as we walked between fields along an often very muddy trail.

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August 21-23 I'll tell you what - hiking is a lot easier than traveling!

These few days between hikes were intended to travel to the next trailhead, explore a few cities, and most importantly rest up. I guess we accomplished all that, but figuring out public transport, coordinating departure, arrival, check-in, and checkout times, and fixing places for improvement in my previous planning upped the stress level. Luckily, Mrs. Dude is calm under that kind of pressure and everything worked out fine.

August 21 - Great night of comfortable rest! It was nice to be in beds. I slept over 8 hours! We had this whole day to explore.

We took a bus to a Sami outdoor museum to pet raised reindeer and learn about the local indigenous population. Sad that it seems to have many similarities to American and Australian (and I imagine many more planes) indigenous history stories.

We enjoyed a nice lunch of reindeer stew, and moose/pork sausage stew.

Also, walked through the oldest church in Lappland.

We walked down the road to the famous Ice Hotel with no ice this time of year. Not much to see.

A highlight was meeting three boys (about 10 yrs old) walking home from school, tearing apart a math workbook. One of them was a real chatter box and spoke great English. He said it was his old book and he's getting his next one tomorrow. They told us that they go fishing and the types of fish they catch.

When we got back to Kiruna, we borrowed two old clunker bikes from the hostel and rode to an ATM to get cash to pay for it stay. Then, bought some food for a light dinner at a grocery store. Then, checked in a sports store for new hiking shoes for Mrs. Dude since hers are not as waterproof as she wants and the forecast is currently for days of rain on Scotland. (No luck on the shoes)

August 22 - Plane to Stockholm. Took train to Upsala North of the airport but the ticket guy said to get on the wrong train which headed south to Stockholm. So, we explored Stockholm for the afternoon. Found new boots for Mrs. Dude. Toured Sweden National Museum. Stayed at Airbnb in strange no-personnel hotel building right at the airport for our very early flight tomorrow.

August 23 -

Early plane to Edinburgh. Explored Edinburgh all day. A big 'Fringe' event was going on so it was very crowded. Toured Scotland National Museum and the new parliament building. I loved the old architecture and buildings reminding of Harry Potter, Mary Poppins, and 101 Dalmatians. Stayed at Airbnb home of a young Lithuanian man which was nice and quiet