9.14 miles (8.9 miles officially)
Outside, as forecast, there was barely a cloud in the sky as I attempted to take the majestic drops of the mountain sides into my phone. I failed. We gathered on the grass for several morning group photos and then headed off back along the path.
Simon’s drugs (of the pharmaceutical variety as his hips weren’t playing ball) hadn’t quite kicked in and Heather felt about her first mile or two of walking as I feel about my first mile or two of running – that it always starts off hard. Luckily the first three miles in this case, was a fairly level track that didn’t venture much higher than the road that was running through Glencoe.
We had seen the signs and the orange flags dotted about, for the cross-country motorbike trials taking place this week, but we didn’t actually see any bikes yesterday. Today, however, there were plenty. Initially away in the hills, we heard the waspy buzzing and then saw from afar the bikes roll and jump over the heather, by the time we were on the path close toward Kinlochleven, we were getting out of their way from time to time as they whizzed along the path. Sally read in a review from just a few days ago that the last leg of someone’s journey was ‘ruined’ by these bikes. They weren’t constantly streaming past us, and to be honest, it added a little extra entertainment to our plodding.
When we got to the foot of ‘The Devil’s Staircase’ the bikes were still very far away, on different hills to the one we were about to climb. There were now little fluffy clouds in the air, too wispy to hide the sun’s rays on their own, but they were thinking about coming together collectively. Our collective action entailed sitting together at the bottom of the hill for a break as the timer had gone off. Julie doesn’t favour an alarm, she goes for keeping a weather eye on her watch. The hour had come and gone before the hill arrived, but we wanted a spec that wasn’t right next to the main road.
Once moving again, we quickly straggled out on the route, with Heather and Paul bringing up the rear. Paul’s legs are so long that he could probably have bounded up the Staircase in half an hour. Instead, we all managed to make it up the mile-long steep incline in just under an hour. From the bottom to the top, it was a little steeper than Conic Hill, by a hundred or so feet, and everybody took it at the pace that suited them. But it wasn’t a huge amount of time before Heather made it to the cairn at the top from when the first person got up there.
There were mountain peaks galore from our viewpoint, but Ben Nevis, assuming we were looking in the right direction, had a little cloud cover on its top.
It was another short day, at just over nine miles door to door. The descent from the top of the staircase was gradual almost all the way to Kinlochleven. The moorland eventually turned into woodland, and I realised I could hear birdsong again now that we were amongst trees. Twice on this trip I’m pretty sure I heard the sound of cuckoos which was a real treat, but when you’re up in the hills, there’s virtually no birds.
The final part was steep, stoney and winding, with the added frisson of dodging the motorbikes. It wasn’t all that easy to walk it so I tried jogging again, which was a tad better. Sally had a little go herself and did indeed find that it felt a bit easier than walking down, and kind of fun. In the final part coming into the town, we walked next to the long black pipes of one of Scotland’s many hydro-electric power stations. Kinlochleven was known as the ‘Electric Village’ because it was the first village in the world to have every house connected to electricity, in the nineteen tens.
Our abode for the evening, a small step down from the previous night, was a pub, so it was again with the stairs. We were, however, able to sit in the sun outside and enjoy a beer there before getting ready for dinner. We watched Val and Ian explore the village while we all sat sipping our beers. There were seven of us, Sally and Derek, Brian and I, Simon, Heather and Paul.
Julie was inside doing her stretching exercises. I had a bunch of exercises that I had put on a list to do each day too. Julie is a lot more self-disciplined than me. It would have helped my blogs to come out earlier too, if I had been inside writing instead of chilling in the sun.
I could have also been further on in the writing if I hadn’t stayed for a little nightcap after dinner. The pub had several pages of whiskies and it seemed almost rude not to partake in a taste. Even Derek, who had been uncorrupted by Brian on their previous sharing night, had a wee dram tonight.
It was explained to me that I was to only put the smallest drop of water into my shot to ‘open it up’. So I took a tiny sip first just to see if there was any difference in the taste. Reader, there really was, and it was rather pleasant.
theleadlesspencil 