A Wild Vista

Munro bagging can be hard on the knees. A combination of sodden ground, steep tussocky slopes, and strong winds took its toll on Saturday. The round of Beinn Achaladair and Beinn a’ Chreachain was a great, if tiring, day out. Twelve miles, and 1300 metres of ascent & descent in rather mixed weather (for which read rain, wind, and cloud), had left me with a twinge in my left knee — one I’ve come to recognise as the beginnings of ITBFS. If ignored (something I’ve done too often in the past), this rapidly becomes debilitating, and puts the hills out of bounds for a good six weeks. Not what I want with a trip to the Alps lined up in the week ahead!

And so on Sunday, to give my knee a chance to recover, I took the low road — following the West Highland Way from Tyndrum to Auch, and then back to Tyndrum. An easy but pleasant few hours moving through country that I’ve only previously experienced from a railway carriage or car. The route from Tyndrum and Strath Fillan across to the upper reaches of the Allt Coire Chailein is shared between the West Highland Way, the West Highland Railway Line, and the A82 trunk road that links Glasgow and Inverness. For a kilometre or two, walkers, trains, and road vehicles travel parallel to one another, just a few metres apart. Not a particularly quiet stretch of the West Highland Way then.

A comedy gate alongside the West Highland Way — just north of Tyndrum

Not that this matters a jot when you’ve got a cloud-capped Beinn Dorain filling the view ahead. Some interesting mixed-mode transport was in operation on the railway hereabouts too, with workmen carrying out maintenance on the line having been transported by an Aquarius Rail Rover Land Rover conversion.

Heading downhill towards Auch, a Hooded Crow was oblivious to the stream of West Highland Way walkers passing by:

Hooded Crow, near Auch

I’d originally intended to turn off the West Highland Way and see how far I could get up Auch Glen without getting my feet wet (the track here crosses and recrosses the river a number of times higher up the valley). I managed just 500m before being brought up short by a substantial ford. On the previous day’s Munro bagging expedition, this would have presented no great problem. I wasn’t on for getting my boots soaked again on what was supposed to be an easy bimble though, so this marked the far point of my stroll.

Interestingly, this has now got me interested in doing the West Highland Way as a walk in itself. I’ve walked various bits of it (near Loch Lomond; from Bridge of Orchy to Victoria Bridge; down Glen Nevis), but always as parts of other mountain walks. It would be nice to make the complete journey and get a different perspective on many places that I’ve seen from the peaks above, or from the car or train whilst pushing on to other destinations.