A (not so) Wee Walk in the Highlands

NOTE: This is long. There are chapters. Bring your popcorn. Feel free to just look at the pictures.

Chapter 1: What is this 12 page chapter book about?

At the beginning of June we were in Scotland hiking the West Highland Way (WHW). The WHW is a 96 mile trail that takes you from Milngavie (pronounced Mill-Guy, near Glasgow) up to Fort William, through the Scottish Highlands. We’ve been wanting to do this for years but we kept putting it off, firstly because we were working on the adoption process and it cost a bit of money. Secondly, because we felt like we couldn’t commit to international travel in case we ‘got the call’ about a child and then wouldn’t be able to get a refund on our travel plans. After 2 years of waiting, we decided we shouldn’t put our lives on hold anymore so we went ahead and booked the tickets and my brother-in-law (who is the one who initiated the idea and invited us along) began the planning.

The hike. As depicted on the wall at the Brothy Bar in Kinlochleven.

Here’s what you should know about me and international travel: it makes me nervous. Mostly because it’s less familiar and I very much prefer my comfort zone. Luckily, my nerves don’t usually prevent me from doing things, I just know it will be uncomfortable, and in an effort to ease some of my nerves I tend to do a lot of research so I can have an idea of what to expect. I found the perfect website where anyone who has hiked the WHW can write a blog account of their experience. I think I read about 15 different accounts and there were two common themes I picked up on:

• Chances are very high you will get blisters. Make sure you have specific bandages for blisters.
• Don’t carry all your gear if you don’t have to. There are great luggage services at reasonable prices that will take your gear to each campground and you can just carry a daypack each day.

That sounds like really helpful information, right? Totally.

Did I ignore both? Sure did.

I don’t think I would’ve admitted it at the time, but I expected to royally rock this hike. With the lower altitude in Scotland, I expected to feel invincible and I consider myself a fairly experienced hiker. I admittedly have less experience backpacking but I’ve been backpacking on way tougher hikes than this without any major issues carrying the weight. Also, my boots are well-hiked in and have never once given me a blister in the past year that I’ve owned them. I worked out pretty regularly and hiked almost weekly in the months leading up to the trip to prepare but I never felt the need to train with extra weight. I guess I figured since I recently lost 20 lbs, any weight I added wouldn’t feel like much.

If you couldn't tell, that's me foreshadowing the events to come.

Aye, ready to go!

Chapter 2: Milngavie to Drymen, 11.5 miles

There’s a big arch introducing you to the path, near the obelisk marking the start. We had walked by it the night before after we ate dinner and I had looked up at it with great anticipation. Now the time was finally here, but it did feel a bit anticlimactic. We walked through the arch and...we were still in Milngavie. Apparently I was expecting to be magically transported to the highlands. Instead, it was a lovely walk through some parks established for the town of Milngavie and we saw many people out walking their dogs. There was a little detour on the path almost immediately. We paused a bit to make sure we went the right way and a gentleman walking his dog stopped to ask if we needed any assistance. We told him we were hiking the WHW and just wanted to make sure we went the right way. He proceeded to escort us through the detour, even though it was going back the way he had just come, chattering away about the hike. He was very pleasant and a very nice introduction to the friendliness of Scotland.

The pack I was about to loathe. On the Glasgow subway.

I didn't get a picture of the arch, but here is a bench at the entrance.

The starting obelisk, sporting the thistle symbol we would follow the whole way.

Despite all the reading that I did, blisters were not on my radar so we did not bring anything specifically to address them. Our packs ended up weighing about 30-35 lbs, which is heavier than we normally carry on account of this being our longest backpacking trip to date, and within the first 4 miles I could feel the hot spots on my feet but my pride got in the way and I chose to ignore them. I’m apparently better than blisters.

Rule No. 1 with Blisters: Address the rub as soon as you feel it to try to prevent the actual blister from forming.

We stopped at Glengoyne Distillery for a whiskey tasting/tour along the way and when I followed the whiskey gentleman to store my pack, he commented on how big it was and seemed incredulous that I was carrying it. I secretly couldn’t argue with him, it felt like I was carrying the bodies of two giant bouncers from da’ club and no part of my body was happy; but we were only just beginning and I wasn’t going to admit to myself that this was already harder than I had anticipated. We were essentially walking on a flat path through the lowlands of Scotland, I should not have been struggling so much.

See, flat. Not a hard trail.

The whiskey tasting was great and we really enjoyed the 12 year whiskey so we bought a little bottle to cheers our accomplishment at the end of the hike. The tour was fun but our tour guide was not Scottish and had some other accent that turned out to be very challenging for me to follow, so I can’t say I learned as much as I had hoped. We finished the tasting and we had a short distance to go to get to our planned lunch spot at the Beech Tree Inn. I went to put my pack back on and I could barely even lift it to get it on my shoulders. Not good. We arrived at the Inn and I decided I would take a look at my feet and found giant, awful blisters. I cringed, put some bandaids and medical tape on them and hoped for the best. We continued our journey to a farm 1.5 miles outside of the town of Drymen (pronounced Dri-men) to set up camp. The ultimate goal was to then walk an additional 1.5 miles to a nearby town for dinner, but I had to admit to the guys that my feet just couldn’t handle it and so we made our backup freeze-dried backpacking dinners and took it easy.

This night would introduce us to some folks we would be seeing often along the way. One in particular that stood out was a young guy with a British accent, from the Netherlands, who worked for the Australian embassy. I know all this because he was instantly chatty with anyone who would listen. I didn’t engage him personally but I did eavesdrop (which wasn’t hard to do). He went on to talk about how this was his first ever hike and how some of his gear didn’t arrive in time and he shared all this as he proceeded to melt his spoon with his camp stove and had to bum another spoon from another camper. The Stoesses just looked at each other, silently conveying, “Get a load of this guy. He’s in for it.”

Chapter 3: Drymen to Sallochy Campground, 13.5 miles

We didn’t have any rain that first day but the rain began to fall as soon as we had set up camp, and it continued all night and all the next morning. Thankfully, the farm provided a covered shelter for the WHW walkers so we had some refuge as we packed up our soaking wet tents and donned our rain gear before continuing our trek. Turns out packing up a really wet tent adds about 10 lbs to your pack and Brian was the lucky one to discover that fun fact.

The shelter provided for WHW walkers at the farm. I realized my rain cover for my
pack didn't  really fit once it was full to the brim so I had to use my emergency
 poncho to run interference.

Wet hobo.

Lead the way, thistle!

We headed to Drymen for breakfast at a lovely little cafe called Skoosh. The waiter was an older gentlemen who was very pleasant and apologetic that the weather was not cooperating for our hike, but he assured us it was supposed to get a little better by the afternoon. We took our time eating and began the rest of our trek at about 10:30am. We had 12 more miles to cover that day which included going up and over the side of Conic Hill, and marked our entrance to the highlands. I was pretty nervous about how I would do lugging my heavy pack up a hill with blisters, and while it was a workout, I found uphill to be doable and the scenery was incredible. The rain quickly cleared and the clouds burned off so we had great visibility. One gentlemen passed us and made a comment that my husband should not be letting me carry this much weight. Thank you, sir. The feminist in me resisted the urge to flip him off.

Me and the brother-in-law, on Conic Hill.

There is an option to briefly leave the WHW to summit Conic Hill so we dropped our packs at the fork and quickly ran up to the summit to enjoy the views and take some pictures. Without my pack on, I felt like I could fly but, alas, we had to put them back on to begin our descent to Balmaha for lunch. This is when I discovered going downhill was WAY WORSE and my blisters screamed with pain. It was only day 2 and I felt like I literally could not take another step. I brought up the rear, sniffling, trying to hold back tears of frustration the entire way down. How on earth was I going to make it the whole 96 miles? It felt impossible but I refused to wave the white flag of defeat so I did the only thing I could think of: I began to pray with a vengeance and reminded myself of anything positive I could think of, namely that I was in Scotland on the trip of a lifetime, doing what I love to do the most.

On the summit of Conic Hill. 1,184 ft. Loch Lomond in the distance.

This hike had already humbled me so much and had reminded me how weak I am (and also what an idiot I am for my arrogance and for not listening to the advice in the blogs). I prayed that God would carry me and help me take each step and that he would make it clear to me if I needed to swallow what remaining pride I had left and pull the plug on the hike altogether and re-evaluate how this trip might need to look. I arrived at Balmaha with my spirit completely deflated and I was in survival mode. I could tell it was a lovely little lakeside town but I was in no mood to enjoy my surroundings. Brian decided he wanted to see if he could mail some of his stuff to where we would stay in Edinburgh at the end of the trip so he could take some of my stuff to try to help me. While this was a very loving, kind, and thoughtful idea, I felt it would take too much time and I really just wanted to get this day over with. He asked our waiter if there was a post office and she said there was one in Drymen (where we just came from) and one in Tyndrum (where we wouldn’t be for another two days). Plan was squashed.

Balmaha. About all I saw of it.

I re-upped my bandages (and double-cringed when I saw how bad my blisters were getting) and we continued on for the remaining 6.5 miles to camp at the Sallochy campground along the shore of Loch Lomond. 6.5 miles felt like 100 miles at that point. I felt like I was walking on razor blades and my pack was k-i-l-l-i-n-g me. When we finally arrived, the camp host greeted us, took one look at (only) me and said, “I bet you can’t wait to take THAT pack off”. My brother-in-law scoffed that she didn’t say anything to him. It didn’t make me feel great that I was getting so many of these comments.

As we set up camp and went over the plan for the next day, panic started setting in and I told the guys I really needed them to pray for a miracle. My blisters were so big I had no idea how I was going to be able to put my shoes back on in the morning. In my desperation to fix things, I decided to try and pop them to relieve some of the pressure and reduce their size. I didn’t bring a needle so I used alcohol wipes to clean our multi-purpose tool and tried to cut them with the knife. They were pretty rough already so it took a lot of effort to puncture them and I wasn’t able to get much liquid out, but hoped it was enough.

Rule No. 2 with Blisters: Don’t pop them. If they are open, you can’t use blister pads and you risk infection.

The third day was to be our longest day at 16.7 miles, along the shore of the lake. The WHW website told me this was by far the hardest day of the hike because you spend most of your time scaling boulders on an undulating trail with steep drop offs above the lake. In our minds, we couldn’t fathom how walking along a lake would be all that hard but I was learning it was wise to heed the words of the website so I started to mentally prepare for a tough time.

My brother-in-law found a blurb about blisters in his first-aid kit where he informed me about rules 1 and 2 mentioned above and I wanted to punch myself in the face for being such an idiot. I’ve had blisters before and I really did know these rules. Why had I turned into such a dolt on this trip?! I blame pride, humiliation, and exhaustion. I found some thick, non-sticky gel pads in our first aid kit that I thought might give my blisters the added protection they needed and felt some hope that I had something to work with other than band aids (which were doing nothing). I went to bed feeling 1% more hopeful about the next day.

Chapter 4: Sallochy to Beinglas Farm, 16.7 miles

The next morning I cut the gel pads and MacGuyvered them to my feet and hoped for a miracle. Brian told me he couldn’t sleep that night so he had texted friends and family asking them to pray for me. That made me want to cry with relief because it felt like that was the only solution I had left (thanks to everyone who prayed! You helped save me).

It had once again rained all night long so we again packed up our soaking wet gear and continued our trek along the loch. Our plan was to eat breakfast 2.5 miles away at the Clansman Bar in Rowardennan; however, breakfast is only served 7:30-9:00 am and with how slow we had been moving we needed to get up extra early to have time to walk the 2.5 miles and still make it before breakfast closed. We had the first “Full Scottish Breakfast” of many (of which my favorite part was the potato scone) and then began our trek along Loch Lomond, which translates to “Long Lake”. Boy would we internalize how long it really was, as we had to walk the remaining length of it to get to our next campsite.

Breakfast at Clansman Bar.

Not long after we began, my brother-in-law’s pace started to noticeably slow and I detected a little limp. I, myself, couldn’t even remember what it felt like to walk like a normal human and my feet were so beat up they were numb with pain (which was a blessing because I couldn’t distinguish the blister pain anymore), and Brian fell way behind with a terrible limp. His limp was so bad I thought for sure he would put an end to this hike.

Taking a moment to appreciate our surroundings.

A happy surprise. I bought the Scottish Tablet, which turned out to be a block of sugar.

It took a lifetime to get to our lunch spot at the Inversnaid Hotel, and it was raining non-stop, which made the rocks and boulders incredibly slippery and dangerous. We sat down for lunch and looked at each other with wide eyes and decided we needed to re-evaluate. We couldn’t believe how much we were struggling. This trail is really not that difficult compared to some of the others we had done together, what the heck was going on?!

Sorry, honey. But this perfectly portrays that moment.

We discussed some options but none of them were great. At this point I wasn’t opposed to the baggage service but we didn’t know how we were going to do it since we hadn’t brought daypacks and needed to carry stuff with us (rain gear, snacks, and water). Brian suddenly had the brilliant revelation that we all had stuffable duffle bags that we used to check our packs at the airport. We could send our duffel bags full of our clothes and gear with the baggage service and use our packs as daypacks.

It was like the heavens opened, warm light shone down on us, and the heavenly choir sang around us. We asked the front desk of the hotel for information on a baggage service and they gave us a phone number. We knew it was too late for that day and that we would have to endure the remaining 7 miles to our next campground but decided we would all just pop some pain meds and get through it. The baggage service was so easy! The phone conversation lasted 3 minutes, it was 5 pounds per day per person and we were to just leave our bags in the bag drop each morning before 9 am with the money in a pocket on the bag. Part of me wondered if we’d ever see our stuff again, but at this point I really didn’t care if I ever saw any of it ever again. However, this would turn out to be the best decision we ever made and I only wish we had done it from the beginning.

After lunch was the hardest part of the trail. It was 3 straight miles of climbing over, under, and in between large rocks while trying not to slip, with some ladders & stairs thrown in as well. With my pack on, taking a step up or down was grunt worthy and my hip was killing me. I tried carrying some of the weight with my arms, by reaching back to lift the pack as much off my hips as I could. It was TOUGH. The 3 miles felt like 10 and it felt like we would never see the end of that loch. A couple of young Scottish lads greeted us as they passed by with the standard, “Hello, how are you?” When I in turn asked them how they were, one acknowledged how tricky this part of the trail was and the other said, “I’ve definitely been better.”  And how, buddy.

Rain and Midges.

I feel like I should mention that we at least were struggling in the midst of some amazing scenery. It’s too bad we were under too much strain to spend much time looking around.

When we FINALLY made it to the end and climbed up away from the lake, my brother-in-law turned around and said the guidebook told him to make sure to turn around to get one last look at the lake, in all its glory. We turned around, quickly admired the beauty one last time and said “Good riddance!” That loch tried to kill us, and it knows it.

Finally at the end of the lake!

One last view of Loch Lomond.

How we really felt.

While we were relieved to have accomplished the hardest part of the hike, we still had another 4 miles to go to get to camp. We were camping at Beinglas Farm which promised to have a pub, showers, and a camp store where I could finally buy blister pads. It felt like if I could just make it to this farm, this trip might be salvageable. We didn’t arrive until after 9pm and since the pub closed at 9:30 we went straight there to get dinner. Brian was so exhausted and delusional, it was pretty comical watching him try to order and pay for our campsite. The poor waitress had to repeat herself about 4 times but Brian couldn’t understand what she was saying at all and ended up basically just throwing money at her to count out herself. She was very patient but I’m sure she couldn’t wait for us to leave. As we sat down to eat, who walks in all showered and smiling for a pint? British guy from the Netherlands who works for the Australian embassy. We instantly glanced at each other like, ARE YOU KIDDING ME? There’s no way that guy beat us here. Grumbling, we ate, showered, and went to bed at around 11:30pm.

Chapter 5: Beinglas Farm to Tyndrum, 13 miles

We woke up in the morning to glorious blue skies and a dry tent = instant mood booster. Plus, we no longer had to carry all our stuff (we kept jokingly asking each other if our packs were still on since they were so light now, because we’re nerds like that) and I was so excited to buy myself some Compeed blister pads (by the end of this trip I would practically own stock in the company). Things were looking up! One big hitch: my right pinky toe blister had popped on its own the day before and the skin was wide open so I couldn’t use the sticky blister pads. I put a bandaid on but the rough day before had obliterated it and it felt like it was broken. I attempted to put my shoe on but I could tell I wouldn’t be able to walk at an even remotely acceptable pace, which was confirmed after about 10 steps. Hobbling, I decided it wouldn’t hurt to try wearing a Chaco sandal instead and that I could always put my boot back on. I kept my boot on my left foot and changed into my Chaco for my right foot. It felt so glorious to be wearing a shoe that didn’t touch my blistered heel or toes!

This day would be our nicest day weather-wise but our muddiest. Due to the mud, I ended up carrying my other hiking boot and changed into it every time we came to deep mud and then changed back into my Chaco. I did get a lot of strange looks from other hikers but I did not care. I was so excited to have found a solution that allowed me to walk like a human again! Our goal was to eat lunch in Crianlarich, the official halfway point, and then camp in Tyndrum (pronounced Tine-Drum). It was a pleasant day with some great mountain scenery. The tearoom where we ate lunch was pretty basic on a train platform but we treated ourselves to ice cream to celebrate making it to the halfway point.

Mud.

Brian was still struggling quite a bit and was limping pretty badly due to a couple blisters and exhaustion. He looked so pitiful (sorry, honey), it was hard to watch. A young German couple became very concerned for us. It really bugged me that we were apparently the derpy kids on the trail who were struggling so much. I wanted to declare, “WE’RE FINE. MIND YOUR OWN BUSINESS”.

And also, this guy.

Our campsite in Tyndrum was lovely and I had the best shower of my life. I will say though that this campground was the worst in the midge department. Midge: tiny little biting gnats. Two Eastern-European guys that we had seen each day were already there and as we walked up they told us the midges were terrible and recommended buying midge nets if we didn’t already have them. At this point I had learned to heed all advice offered so when we went to pay for our campsite and I saw them for sale I didn’t hesitate to tell Brian to buy them for us. My brother-in-law opted out but went back about 2 minutes later when they swarmed his face as he was setting up his tent.

Sporting my new midge net.

We did laundry and had dinner before calling it a day. I walked into the laundry room to move our clothes only to find none other than British/Netherland/Australian guy. At this point I was 99% convinced he was taking cabs to each location (but would have them drop him off a mile or two from camp so he could look like he walked the whole way). He always left after us and we never saw him pass us along the trail! I had to wait for the dryer to finish so I pretended to read while I again eavesdropped on this kid. He was talking about the walk and there are things he said that you just wouldn’t know if you hadn’t walked the whole thing and I found myself really hating him. He was inexperienced, dopey, and yet was kicking our asses. He said his plan for the next day was to walk all the way to Kinlochleven, 30 kilometers. We were going to break that up over 3 days so I looked down as I rolled my eyes. I was grateful when our clothes were done so I could leave and not listen to him anymore. For some reason this kid really irked me from the minute he first opened his mouth in Drymen. I went back to the tents to tell the guys that I was sorry to report I really did think he was walking the whole thing and what his plan was for the next day. We all guffawed before settling in for the night. Despite ending my day full of frustration toward that kid, I felt so euphoric to have had such a glorious day after so many rough days.

Chapter 6: Tyndrum to Inveroran, 9 miles

We woke up to rain again. Whew. Scotland weather, amiright? I was getting very tired of wearing my rain gear. As we headed to town to have breakfast, I noticed that, once again, British/Dutch/Australian guy hadn’t even begun to pack up yet (we didn’t have a very long day ahead so we weren’t heading out very early), and I continued my steely judgement toward him. Shouldn’t he already be on the road if he has like 20 miles to cover? We’ll never know what happened to him, but I’m begrudgingly willing to bet he made it without a hitch. We scoffed (seriously, we talked about this guy way too much) and then began our trek to Inveroran, with a planned lunch stop in Bridge of Orchy.

I decided to wear Chacos on both feet this time despite the rain in an attempt to give my blisters a day to heal. It misted on us all day long but it wasn’t miserable. Brian was starting to feel better and, in his words, “I remembered how to walk again!” At one point, he needed to stop and get more water from a stream and was sitting at the side of the trail with his filter when that concerned German couple came by. They asked us how we were doing and pointed at my sandaled feet and Brian sitting on the ground. WE’RE FINE. Sheesh. We'll let you know if we need your help, mmmkay? Thanks.

(Side note: a lot of people who share their experience of this trail talk about the friendships they formed along the way as a highlight of their trip. As you can probably gather by now, I’m sorry to report we did not develop any lasting friendships, and that might be my fault).

We were beginning to get more remote and the scenery began shifting to reveal taller hills, which excited me. We mostly walked along an old, flat military road until we got to Bridge of Orchy where we ate at a hotel restaurant before beginning a wonderful climb up into the hills where I started to get really excited. We had a great view of Loch Tulla, near where we would be camping that night. Mercifully, my feet somehow stayed dry all day despite the misting rain and I relished in another good day of hiking.

My uniform.

Happy happy.

You can't see it, but Loch Tulla is off in the distance on the left. And yes, my rain pants are about 6 inches too long.

We got down to Inveroran where there is one very small hotel. The guidebook said we could see if they would accommodate us for dinner so we went in to ask. The lady was very stern and said she could only provide us dinner at 6pm (she acted like that was a weird time to eat, lucky for us Americans, that’s perfectly normal) because they get very busy and that it would be wise to get our seats now and wait the hour to make sure there would be a table for us. We were okay with that and went to the Walker’s Bar to enjoy a cider and debrief our experience so far. We were hanging up our rain gear and individually entered the bar, only to find the young German couple who shouted, “CONGRATULATIONS!” each time one of us walked in (i.e. 3 times). I was somewhat mortified. A) I hate having unnecessary attention drawn to me in public, and B) STOP PATRONIZING US! I know they meant well but they bugged me so much, especially when they then proceeded to go outside for a smoke. I realized how much I dislike am jealous of young people on this trip. They really seemed invincible to my 36 year old self. Thankfully, we lost them after this day and didn't run into them again. Auf Wiedersehen.

The hotel lady may have been a little overdramatic as it never did get very busy, but we enjoyed a nice dinner before walking another 300 meters to the designated camp site (i.e. a field around the bend that is prone to flooding). Since it had rained all day and continued all night, I kept waking up throughout the night worried that our tent would be flooded but it never did and we once again packed up our wet gear in the morning and headed to the hills.

Chapter 7: Inveroran to Glencoe Mountain Resort, 8 miles

This was our shortest day at 8 miles, which was a nice break to relax and enjoy our time. It was raining pretty hard and I quickly learned my sandals weren’t going to cut it. I sadly changed my soaked socks and grimaced as I gingerly put my boots back on and popped an ibuprofen. I wish I could tell you my feet had magically healed over the course of the 2 sandal days but that was not the case and it was not great at all. I again started to wonder how on earth I was going to get through this. I hobbled along slowly for quite a while as we headed up into Rannoch Moor, “Scotland’s largest and wildest moor”. Today we were on an old stone road that had been out of of commission since the 1930’s. It was very uneven and very wet. The wonky stones made it tough to avoid my blisters and it really did take its toll.

  

Rough road.

Rannoch Moor

Rannoch Moor

Mercifully, my feet eventually (sort of) warmed up to the fact that they weren’t getting out of this. When the ibuprofen kicked in I was able to have a somewhat normal gait, and as long as I didn’t stop I felt comparably okay. The moor was beautiful. It was foggy, but not enough that you couldn’t tell you were ‘out there’. It’s a unique type of beauty that you really have to experience for yourself, as I can’t find the words to do it justice. The hills got taller as we got closer to our camp at Glencoe Mountain Resort and I couldn’t help but smile. I was officially in my happy place. The rain eventually stopped and the sun came out as we rounded the bend into the Glencoe resort and I silently squealed to myself. It was so pretty and I was so glad it was a short day so we could really enjoy where we were. We arrived in the afternoon and were able to enjoy a nice lunch in the cafe before setting up camp and then riding the ski lift up to see some views. There was a large hill in the way of the view I wanted so we climbed up and were greeted with glorious scenery. This was one of my top 5 favorite moments. We didn’t have a lot of time before the lift stopped running so we quickly took some pictures and then headed back down to camp. We took showers and then headed back to the cafe to charge our devices, read, and enjoy a snack. This was a lovely day.

Me. Happy Place.

Brian found this ski 'resort' endearing. Like frozen in time from the 80's.

Ski Lift. Let something else propel us for a bit.

One of the better ski lift scenes I've experienced.

After climbing the additional hill to get some views. I couldn't find anything telling me the name of that guy
in front of me but I loved him. My guess is his first name is Ben.

The view after we climbed the additional hill after riding the gondola. 

Chapter 8: Glencoe Mountain Resort to Kinlochleven, 10 miles

We woke up to more rain. At this point I had given up hope of ever having a dry tent again and we were now very used to packing up wet gear and donning our rain gear. This was the day I had been looking forward to the most because we were to climb Devil’s Staircase to our highest point of the trail before descending down to the town of Kinlochleven. We first needed to walk 1.5 miles to Kingshouse Hotel for breakfast so we again had to make sure we had enough time to get there before they stopped serving breakfast. I was now at a point with my feet that I just automatically took ibuprofen each morning and I would start out slow and in a lot of pain but would eventually get a groove and could always tell when the ibuprofen kicked in. It most definitely wasn’t ideal but it was something I could work with.

My main concern this day was that the fog and rain would prevent us from seeing what I knew would be amazing views. Luckily the fog wasn’t too dense and the sun came out in the valley behind us, which created some amazing scenery and made me incredibly happy to be alive and experiencing this. It also turned out that all of our ascents became my favorite parts of the hike. My feet hurt less climbing up, I felt strong, enjoyed the workout, and loved the views. There was nowhere to stop for lunch between Kingshouse and Kinlochleven so we stopped just after the top of Devil’s Staircase (which is not as bad as all the blogs/websites make it out to be, I even heard one girl at a previous night’s camp say she heard people have died climbing up it- I find that very unlikely unless they were struck by lightning or somehow did something stupidly death defying) to eat some snacks before heading down, down, down into the valley. Supposedly Kinlochleven had been voted ugliest town in Scotland at one point but I found it to be lovely and charming, surrounded by beautiful scenery. In fact, I told Brian I wanted to buy a house here so when we’re retired we can live there for a few months out of the year.

The sun came out behind us and it was breathtaking.

Favorite day.

Kinlochleven. View near our campsite. This is an inlet from the sea, I was told.

As we entered town, the sun came out and it got really hot. All the perpetual rain had made me feel like a vampire in the sun. “Ahhh, what is this bright burning ball of fire scorching my eyes and my skin?” We immediately ate a nice meal upon arrival since we’d only been snacking since breakfast and ended up having the upstairs of the restaurant basically to ourselves with a great view of the river, where we watched kayakers and tubers biff it repeatedly in a little rapid park. It was great entertainment. We stocked up on more snacks, where I discovered a gummy candy called Randoms that I now love and miss (I put them on my amazon wishlist, Qty: 1,000, if you feel so inclined to treat me), and then set up camp behind MacDonald’s Inn.

Since it was another shorter day we had some time to enjoy where we were, so to take advantage of the nice weather we walked to Gray Mare Falls. It’s a lovely waterfall. We did laundry again and then I was feeling somewhat social so I suggested we go to the Brothy Bar in the nearby hotel and have a pint and a snack. It was super crowded and stuffy and I quickly remembered I’m an introvert, but we sat in a dark corner by ourselves and had a nice time watching Britain's The Voice, until they switched it to sports. It began raining AGAIN and we ran back to our tents and called it a night.

Chapter 9: Kinlochleven to Glen Nevis Campground, 12 miles
      Glen Nevis to Fort William, 2.9 miles

This day would be our last full day of hiking and our goal was 12 miles to Glen Nevis campground, just 2.9 miles from the end of the hike in Fort William. This day was my least favorite. The weather was awful for a lot of it, howling winds and pelting rain, and the trail was not very interesting. After the ascent up from Kinlochleven we got away from the beautiful scenery surrounding that town and you could see the trail go on forever in front of you and it never felt like you were making much progress. It was also a bottleneck of hikers that made it feel like a processional. I really didn’t enjoy this day much at all and it became a necessary means to an end. The best parts were the views above Kinlochleven and seeing Ben Nevis.

Climbing up and out of Kinlochleven.

Phew. So beautiful.

Best part of the day.

Never-ending trail.

Ben Nevis is one of Scotland’s munro’s (hills over 3,000 ft tall) and I hear it is Britain’s tallest at 4,413 ft. That does not at all sound impressive to Coloradans (we live between 5,000-6,000 ft so our mountains tend to range from 8,000-14,000 ft), but I always forget about perspective. When you start at sea-level, 4,413 ft is tall and Ben Nevis definitely had a dominating presence despite us not being able to see the top. I found myself unable to stop staring up at it. My brother-in-law had said originally he thought we would take some time to climb it at the end of the hike, but read that it’s covered in fog 300 days out of the year and you can’t see anything. In my mind, the whole point of climbing 4,413 ft is to see the views and be rewarded for your work so I was in agreement with his wise choice to nix it. It’s also 8.5 miles roundtrip and after walking 96 miles with blisters, that really didn’t sound very appealing.

Here is Ben Nevis. Hard to capture his presence in a photo. But you can also see why we chose not to climb him (fog).

We descended down toward the campground and ate at a lovely bar/restaurant before going to set up camp. We once again set up in the rain before we took nice showers and went to bed super early. We had a bus to catch the next morning at 8:55am in Fort William so we needed time to pack up and walk the last 2.9 miles of the hike and hoped to still have time to grab some breakfast before our bus left. This would also be our first day carrying all our gear again (blarg) so we weren’t sure how fast we would be. We got up at 4:30 am, packed our soaking tents and headed down the final stretch. We decided to forego the usual route, which involves walking along a highway (not a fitting way to end our trek), and instead chose an alternate route that promised to be more scenic, if a little bit longer. We were feeling stronger at this point and it only took us about an hour to walk the few miles so we had plenty of time to take pictures with the statue marking the end of the hike (sore feet guy!) and then enjoyed a super reasonably priced breakfast before heading to the bus station (seriously, it was like 5 pounds per person for a good amount of food and a fancy coffee).

Sore Feet Guy! Solidarity, brother.

Fort William. We were some of the only people awake.

Breaking out that 12 year whiskey from Day 1 on our train ride to Stirling.

Honestly, the end was pretty anticlimactic, just like walking through that arch at the beginning. I don’t know that I was expecting fanfare but we were the only ones there on account of us leaving the last few miles until the next day and getting there so early, so it was lacking the excited energy I guess I was expecting. It was kind of a weird moment for me. I had spent 8 days thinking of this statue, each grueling minute was focused on getting to this guy, and then, just like that, we quietly turned a corner to see him sitting there and it was just over. THAT would've been a better moment for those Germans to be waiting for us, shouting "CONGRATULATIONS". I felt simultaneously relieved, accomplished, and incredibly sad to be finished.

Chapter 10: Closing Thoughts

Man, what a humbling, painful, and amazing experience. Even though it was primarily torturous, I would do it again in a heartbeat. The first 3 days were the hardest because I spent a lot of time being mad at myself for doing it all wrong and I was aching for a do-over button. I couldn’t believe I let my pride potentially jeopardize this amazing opportunity, but at some point I realized I had to come to terms with the fact that I could not start over and that it was what it was. All I could do was focus on the positives and make the most of it, despite the frustrating, ultimately avoidable-if-I-hadn’t-been-such-an-idiot pain.

When all was said and done, it was quite invigorating to be reminded what I’m made of. I live a pretty cushy life that doesn’t require me to fight for what I want all that often and I spend so much of my time instead giving into my natural tendencies to be timid and nervous toward life. It was nice to be reminded I can be quite scrappy when I need to be. I really did put myself through a ton of pain on a hike where it would have been pretty easy to decide to just take a cab each day to the next location (like I'm still pretty sure that British/Dutch/Australian guy did). I was able to conquer it, mind over matter, and that’s a pretty cool thing to find out about yourself. I can’t say I’ve ever experienced anything like it and if there’s any advice I could leave with you, it’s this:

• It’s very wise to take the advice of those who have gone before you. Chances are incredibly high you don’t know better.
• Always have blister stuff with you if you’re walking long distances, and follow the blister rules.
• Carrying 30+ extra pounds for 100 miles doesn’t prove anything in the grand scheme of things (except that maybe you’re nuts; but if that’s the goal of your trip, you be you).
• Bring an alternative hardy footwear option!! My Chaco sandals saved the trip.
• The key to pain management (according to me) is lots of prayer, focusing on what doesn’t hurt and feeling thankful for that. Singing/humming can be helpful as well.
• If you have a fitbit, wear it, because if your steps don’t get logged, what’s the point? But know that by day 4, you’ll be so used to reaching your goal before 10am it really isn’t a moment of celebration like it normally is. [However, it was satisfying to finally whoop (and completely annihilate) my retired parents in the Friend rankings.]
• People in their 20’s are exponentially more resilient than those in their 30’s, it's best to just come to terms with it now. You’re not what you used to be, but you had your time. It’s not their fault you waited until later in your life to do this hike. (And I’m [sort of] sorry for all the mean thoughts I had about all the younger people we encountered along the way).

Well done, Scotland. You showed this experienced hiker what's up.

P.S. If it's an excellent picture, it was taken by my husband. He was the official photographer and often said the reason he was way in the back was because he was taking photos. Sure, we'll let you have that.

**Addendum 6/29/17: After re-reading my blog last night, I realized my closing thoughts sounded horn-tooty about how awesome I am to have accomplished this. I want to make it clear that I had help. I prayed SO HARD all day long. Every night, I'd thank God for answering my prayers and for helping me to make it through another day when it felt impossible (and then I'd say, "but maybe we can take a break from showing me I can do hard things tomorrow?") I am weak, and I truly believe it was God's doing that I was able to conquer the pain, mind-over-matter. And that singing I recommended for pain management, all I could think of to sing were hymns (with a little Bonnie Banks o' Loch Lomond mixed in - google it if you don't know it.) **