As I mentioned in my previous blog, last week I was out of the business, walking the West Highland Way, a 96-mile through-hike which is typically traversed north from Milngavie (a suburb north of Glasgow) up to Fort William. Walkers will normally take between 5-9 days to complete it, although the record is a frankly disgusting 13 hours and 41 mins! Having done it over seven days, I have absolutely zero clue how that would be possible!
Today's blog isn't really about leadership, or coaching, or any of the topics I normally write about, although I certainly through about those topics plenty, while I was out on the hills. It's really just a place to capture my thoughts, share a few photos and be able to look back in future years on what proved to be a pretty remarkable week!
Monday 9 Sept
The week started with a drive to Glasgow, leaving my car at the house of a friend and former colleague and getting a lift to the Premier Inn in Milngavie. I checked in, dropped my bags and headed out to meet my walking partner and another friend of ours for dinner. It was fairly heavy rain as we walked to the restaurant, which did not bode well for the following day's adventure, but we had a nice meal at Classic India before retiring to an early bed.
Tuesday 10 Sept
Up early and down to breakfast, then packed up our big bags and queued in the hotel car park for the company we were using to transport our main bags to load them into their van and drive them to our hotel for the second night. Thankfully, for the rest of the week, the bags simply appeared in the places we were staying and we left them in designated rooms or outbuildings to be moved along. After this, we got our backpacks and boots on and hit the road at 08:30, walking about 1.5 miles to the start point of the WHW, took the obligatory photographs and headed in the direction of Drymen, our first stop.
Although that was our first overnight stop, we did have some important business to attend to on the way; we'd booked in for a whisky tasting at Glengoyne Distillery, which sits about 100 metres off the track, about half way into day 1. We had booked the earliest tasting of the day, but were making excellent time and arrived two hours before the allotted slot, so we wandered around the distillery, chatted to staff and visited the gift shop wherein we picked up a few miniatures and did an impromptu tasting of our own! Once we had finished the formal tasting, we hit the trail again and plowed on to Drymen, arriving about 15:30.
Day one is pretty straightforward walking and a relatively common trail, even for those not undertaking the whole Way. It was 13.75 miles door to door, making it our second shortest day of the whole week, but we still racked up a good 30,644 steps before we had dinner in Drymen and headed to our beds in a little B&B with Rosie, the fluffiest Old English Sheepdog puppy in the land!
Wednesday 11 Sept
The second day of walking commenced, after a nice continental breakfast, at 08:15 and took us 15.24 miles to Rowardennan, over the beautiful Conic Hill on the eastern side of Loch Lomond. We had some of the best weather of the whole week for this and, after leaving Drymen and walking up into the woods, past a small group of wild campers and around five other walkers, we pushed on and didn't see anyone else at all, until we summited Conic Hill. Climbing Conic Hill is a really popular walk, but almost everyone who does it, climbs from the car park at Balmaha, to the summit and back down. We approached from the opposite side, so went from seeing almost nobody, to suddenly seeing a tonne of people over the next couple of miles. The views from the top, over Loch Lomond and its many islands, are absolutely stunning, and on a day like we had, you could see for miles. When we reached the bottom - and the descent was tougher than the climb, over the steep rocky steps - we found a small cafe and stopped for lunch.
The afternoon was less dramatic, as we left Balmaha and walked alongside Loch Lomond, moving from tracks to paths to the beach, but it was a beautiful day and easy walking and we got to the Rowardennan Hotel for around 3pm and soaked our feet in the loch, pint in hand! I took the opportunity to soak my legs in the bath, with some Epsom Salts, while listening to Iron Maiden's Powerslave album and reflecting on overcoming the first big challenge of the week. Another 33,488 steps in the bag, a nice dinner and off to snooze!
Thursday 12 Sept
Day three of the walk was absolutely brutal. There are no other words for it; it's widely agreed to be the toughest day of the walk and it did not disappoint in that regard. The route was was 14.29 miles from Rowardennan to Inverarnan and despite it being the middle of the seven days in terms of distance covered, we were on the road for almost an hour longer than any other day - and that includes the first day where we spent over two and a half hours at a distillery! The first part of the day is relatively straightforward and takes you to the Inversnaid Hotel where refreshments await, There is some variation over the second part of the day, but the main thrust of it is that you're walking up the Eastern shore of Loch Lomond and a significant proportion of the distance isn't on paths, it's up and down over rocks, boulders, staircases and tree roots. The amount of effort that is required to go any distance is SIGNIFICANTLY greater than during any other part of the walk, and on an unseasonably warm early autumn day, that makes for tough sledding. We took the opportunity to spend some time catching our breath on the beautiful and secluded beaches that line the loch and I also took the opportunity to practice my swearing, coming up with a few new variations on words and phrases which felt apt given the terrain, but eventually at 4pm, we emerged from the trees and arrived at Beinglas Farm campsite. We enjoyed a well earned refreshment, then walked ten minutes to the legendary Drovers pub, probably the most well known watering hole on the route and one of the most famous in Scotland. Opened in 1705 and claimed to be haunted, it's full of strange taxidermy, including a Bear in a kilt which greets you as you arrive and it's a lovely spot. After that it was back to the campsite where we had a lodge for the night, washed up for dinner and then off to bed to rest the aching legs after a tough day of 37,962 steps over the only terrain on the walk that I would not choose to revisit!
Friday 13 Sept
Day 4 started slightly later than usual, at 8:35 as we hit the road in light drizzle, after a hearty breakfast, making our way towards Tyndrum. 14.05 miles of walking lay before us, but the first half was really straightforward and a nice change from the previous day. The landscape starts to change on this leg, from the wooded lochside views to those you'd more traditionally associate with the Highlands. The weather brightened up fast and we made great progress. We then climbed up into the woods and the Crianlarich Crossroads which mark the halfway point of the whole walk. We took a slight detour and visited the Holy Pool which has one of the most amusing rituals I've ever encountered, before passing the site of the Battle of Dalrigh and the Lochan of the Lost Sword (where Robert the Bruce allegedly threw his sword after the defeat at this battle). This was a winding path through woodland but very easy going and we arrived at Tyndrum, home of the legendary Green Welly Stop before 2pm. We were far to early to check in to our accommodation so went to the Green Welly for some lunch and then the Tyndrum Inn to rehydrate and finally checked in and dropped our bags before heading back out to dinner. By the time we turned in for the night it was another 30,783 steps and we needed our snooze for the longest walk of the week.
Saturday 14 Sept
The weather had been kind to us to this point, but our luck ran out on day five and it rained pretty much non-stop from Tyndrum to Kingshouse, 19.09 miles away. The challenge was, it wasn't cold - just wet and a bit windy, so I did the walk (as I had every day) in walking boots, shorts and tshirt, which got some pretty odd looks and even a few photos and videos from walkers in disbelief. It wasn't a matter of bravado - if I put on a waterproof jacket and trousers, I end up sweating so much I'm not only just as wet as I would be without them, I'm now also roasting and I hate being too hot! So we plowed on, and boy did we ever plow on - this was our equal fastest day of the whole week, making excellent pace along seven miles of old military road to Bridge of Orchy where we joined a selection of other soggy walkers in the Bridge of Orchy Hotel for a morning cuppa before setting off again. From here we rose up over a small ridge and past the Inverornan Hotel (bar was not open, complaints were logged) and round the head of Loch Tulla which was a beautiful spot despite the weather, from where we rose to the Black Mount and oversaw the bleakness of Rannoch Moor where shelter was at a premium and the weather was at its most unforgiving. Despite this, it might have been my favourite part of the whole walk, with the closed-in weather reducing visibility and taking the focus of the walk from scenery to just putting one foot down in front of the other and hammering through the miles. We powered on and laughed a lot and despite my attempts to listen to an audiobook resulting in waterlogged and ruined headphones, it was a fantastic experience. As the miles clocked up, we approached the Glencoe Mountain Resort and knew the end was in sight. Boots were, by now, full of water and we tramped down the hillside, crossed the A82 and practically kicked in the doors of the lovely pub attached to the end of the Kingshouse Hotel, where a roaring fire and a refreshing beverage awaited!
This was comfortably our most luxurious stop of the week and it was very welcome after a soggy day; boots and bags into the drying room, showered and changed into fresh clothes and down for a lovely meal in the restaurant which, had there been any visibility, would surely have had a strong claim to the most beautiful view in Scotland, looking out through Glencoe with its string of Munros, off into the distance. By the time our heads hit our pillows, we had 40,960 steps in the bag and a very memorable day of hiking in our memories.
Sunday 15 Sept
By contrast, Sunday was our shortest walk of the whole week, only 8.61 miles to Kinlochleven, but not before we ascended the legendary Devil's Staircase; the highest point of the West Highland Way at 548 metres. We left later than any other day, hitting the trail at 9:30, so as not to arrive too early at our destination and it meant that we arrived at the Devil's Staircase just as the first runners of the Glencoe Half Marathon were cresting the hill and descending at pace. It made for a pretty inspiring scene, as the efforts of the runners were extremely impressive, but it also meant that we regularly had to stop and step into the side of the track to let runners past, which was a really handy way of taking a long uphill slog and breaking it up into bitesize chunks! From here it was a fairly gentle descent across rugged mountain scenery for the majority of the remainder, until things got very steep as we dropped down into Kinlochleven. By this point we were passing the runners of the full Glencoe Marathon who had left that morning from Fort William. Knowing the descent we'd just done, it was hard not to feel for the runners about to climb those hills, before plunging over the top of the Staircase and down to the finish line! We arrived in Kinlochleven in early afternoon, dropped our bags and wandered into town for some lunch, before making a fairly considerable dent in the supplies of malt and hops in the village that evening! Only 25,720 steps bagged, but a nice changeup after a long day prior!
Monday 16 Sept
We awoke, somewhat bleary eyed, on the morning of the final day, ate a lovely breakfast and packed our bags to take on the last 15.41 miles which would see us to the finish line in Fort William. I have to say, it started TERRIBLY! The first quarter of a mile or so was on the road, nice and flat, but suddenly we entered a wooded area and climbed up what felt like a vertical ascent to the moon. The physical toil may have been exacerbated by the previous evening's revelry, as well as the fact it was a beautiful sunny day, but it made it no less traumatic! Thankfully, however, the road levelled off and we had stunning views not only back down over Kinlochleven but off down the trail ahead of us for miles. We plodded along well, making light work of our supplies of water, passing lots of the walkers with whom we'd spent the previous six days and evenings. While many people do the walk in five or fewer days and some take more than a week, the sweet spot for most people seems to be the 6-7 day window, which meant that while we were walking it as a duo, we were effectively part of a large caravan of around 50 people who were all walking it at roughly the same pace and time. That created a lovely community, as we met during walks and over dinners, drinks and breakfasts to learn about one another and compare notes on the day's walking and our shared experience. Knowing that we were coming to the end and that this great collection of souls were all going to dissipate off around the world to their homes once we were done, created a poignancy that made the last day very special. As such, lots of kind words were shared and expectations set of meeting up at the Black Isle Brewery overlooking the finish line to say a final goodbye. A group of Canadian mums passed us a half-drunk bottle of Famous Grouse as we approached their lunch spot, which we gladly accepted and emptied. An informal picnic spot was created where lots of us ate together. Then we pushed, dipping and rising through Conifer plantations until the giant spectacle of Ben Nevis appeared in the distance, letting us know that Fort William wasn't far away. The final descent alongside the mountain was fairly spectacular, but the last few miles along a pavement into the town centre were a strange anti-climax to the incredible scenery we'd enjoyed.
Nevertheless, we walked proudly up the middle of Fort William, to the statue of the man rubbing his feet and the marker designating the end of the Way, receiving a faint applause from two walkers who had beaten us across the line and taken up seats outside the pub. After a photo stop, we joined them and over the next few hours, every walker who finished was cheered over the line and the joined the chorus to do the same for their fellow hikers. It was a lovely way to gather everyone together. The final 38,916 steps were logged and the walking was done! The rest of the night involved further significant revelry which doesn't need to be relayed here, but needless to say, the Volunteer Arms Karaoke has never seen that sort of action before or since!
Overall, with 238,473 steps over 100 miles of total walking, it was a significant physical effort but the joy of meeting some incredible people and seeing the beauty of the West Highlands meant it never felt like a hardship (except that bit next to the Loch but I'm trying to forget about that!) I've spoken before about my own difficulties with endings and this has been a tough thing to finish and come home from; a week where all you have to do is get up and walk and count down the miles to your destination - so the planning for the next adventure is already well underway!
If you've ever considered this or any other multi-day hike, I cannot recommend it enough. I'm hardly in peak physical condition, but as the old man we met on our first day told us, "There's a saying among us hikers, we say 'hike your own hike'" and he couldn't have been more right. Some people like to plow on and others like to take a more leisurely pace. From the marathon runners, to the 22-year old Czech girl who was free camping, to the 68-year old Canadian ladies we met, everyone found their own pace and hiked their own hike and all of them added a little something to what was a magic week for us.
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