Wandering Walkers 9

DAY 9

It always rains when I come to Glencoe and it looked like it would rain again for my fourth visit, and there would be no views of its famous mountains. It did rain and sleet, but the sun also shone and the views were incredible.

This strange guardian watches over the Glencoe resort car park. About 5 metres tall, he is made from ski, snow board and mountain bike parts. The mountain bike season starts here on May 5, but I think it will over lap with the ski season this year.

 Black Rock Cottage belongs to the Scottish Ladies Climbing Club.

 About 2 miles from the resort is the historic Kingshouse Inn.

Or, what is left of it.

 It will be unrecognisable when the £11 million redevelopment is completed at the end of the year. It will not look anything like it did when Donald Duff lived there, or like it did two years ago, last time we were here. 

I imagined Donald and Catherine walking this road in the 1800s when it was a droving road, stopping at Kings House for a wee dram to warm their weary bones, perhap purchase some salt, before turning south into Glen Etive (the valley in the centre of the picture below) following the river for 5 miles to their home in the isolated glen, where Donald worked and they brought up their seven children.

The next few miles along the valley floor were magnificent.

The weather sleeted on us just before we commenced the 2 mile climb up the Devils Staircase, a switchbacked trail to a high ridge. We had heard many tales of how hard this climb is, and although we did not exactly skip up it, it was no harder than many of the climbing trails at Cradle Mountain such as the Horse Track. The sun shone on our backs as we climbed and stripped layers of clothing off. At the top we put the layers back on while we ate our lunch and watched a film crew using drones to film mountain bikers, and admired the incredible 360 degree view.

Then we began the long walk down to sea level to the village of Kinlochleven where a comfortable hotel room was awaiting our arrival.

Deer were grazing far below in the valley. The hydro-electric dam in the distance was built in 1905 to power an aluminium smelter in Kinlochleven which was the first town in the world to be completely connected to electricity.

It was raining again when we arrived at the MacDonald Hotel, but we didn't care. It had been a magnificent day of walking.

A rest day tomorrow, and then the final 24km of the WHW.