Kinlochleven to Glen Nevis

Tuesday 29th May 2012

The previous evening to this walk, while slowly making my way back to the hostel from Glenfinnan, I had plenty of time to think about the dissatisfaction I have felt in recent years over my Scottish holidays. Other holidays that I’ve had over the last year, like in the Lake District at Easter or the Pennine Way last September, have been great, but when I’m in Scotland I've felt like something has been missing and I think it’s because my focus during walking has changed. Years ago I used to say that I don’t do long distance walks because I’m too interested in going up mountains, but over the last couple of years I have been doing more and more long distance walks. When I’m in Scotland though, my focus is still on getting to the top of a mountain and bagging the summit, and I don’t think that interests me anymore, if it ever did. I remember way back in 1998 really enjoying my first ever walk between hostels (and I repeated that walk last September), and I still enjoy going from hostel to hostel under my own power. I don’t think I’ve ever been a enthusiastic top-bagger, especially now.

Following my previous two walks I was really tired, but I still had a strong desire to do another walk over the Mamores. I climbed the western-most Munros of the Mamores on the previous Sunday and was desperate to return to this thrilling range of mountains. However, even from the Glen Nevis Youth Hostel there is a long walk down the valley to the foot of the range, and then a long walk back again. This is a common occurrence in Scotland and even having a car rarely makes much of a difference as the distance is always much greater in Scotland. The prospect of having to do that long walk-in again in my weakened state on top of a challenging walk like the ‘Ring of Steall’ did not feel like the sort of thing I would be able to do. Therefore, while having my breakfast I decided that I would catch a bus to Kinlochleven, on the other side of the Mamores, and walk back to Glen Nevis over the top of the mountains.

Kinlochleven is a fabulous place, even though I usually find it swarming with midges. I was first there in 2004 while walking the West Highland Way, and returned in both 2006 and 2008 to do walks in the eastern Mamores in poor weather. I was now returning to Kinlochleven with weather that was a lot better than on those occasions, but actually a lot worse than it had been earlier in the week. The sky was overcast with low clouds that covered the high mountains but this simply made the walking much more pleasant. The path I wanted up to the Mamores comes off the West Highland Way and climbs beside the Allt Coire na h-Eirghe to reach the ridge between Sgorr an Iubhair and the Munro, Am Bodach. However, as I set off from Kinlochleven up the West Highland Way, I was still feeling quite tired and it struck me that a much better idea would be to stay on the West Highland Way all the way into Glen Nevis. This is a bit of a cop-out but I really did need an easier day, and actually by the time the bus eventually got to Kinlochleven it was almost noon. To do anything else would have been silly.

The West Highland Way climbs out of Kinlochleven on an excellent path through delightful woodland until eventually levelling off when it reaches a wide track. This abominably stony track continues for miles along the bottom of a broad valley with the Mamores rising impossibly steep to the right and the lower hills of Beinn na Caillich and the Corbett Mam na Gualainn to the left. Long distance paths vary in quality and in my experience the most important criteria is good wild scenery to walk past, and the West Highland Way, for the all the negatives that can be thrown at it, does have this. It’s not a bad walk. I had a great sense of isolation and loneliness as I travelled along the valley through Lairigmòr. The valley I was walking through is completely deserted with the only signs of civilisation being one or two ruined farm houses. I was enjoying this walk even though I wasn’t going up a mountain, and since I was following my steps of eight years ago I felt like I was meeting up with an old friend.

After the valley veers to the right, the way enters dense woodland, or at least it used to. I remember it doing so eight years ago and my map indicates that it does but the whole wood, really just a timber factory, has been felled since then. There is still a lot of desolation caused by the discarded branches and tree trunks, but the feeling of openness afforded by the felled wood felt a lot better than it would have been had I been walking along a wide track through dense woodland. Further on the way narrows and enters un-felled woodland on a narrow, brilliantly designed path that threads its way through the wood. This was thoroughly enjoyable despite the lifelessness inside the dense conifer wood, and then it all came crashing down. After passing through another area of felled woodland I reached a vast forest road (presumably made to facilitate the clearing of the wood) that isn’t indicated on my map, and I’m sure it wasn’t there in 2004. There was nothing natural about this road, they may as well have tarmacked it; it was sickening, especially when compared with the excellent path that I’d just been on which I could see traces of its continuation in places. This road passes over the col before slowly descending through Nevis Forest into Glen Nevis. Bearing in mind that this was really just a take-it-easy kind of walk, it really wasn’t bad. It was a nice change of scenery, but it was at its best when the human intrusion was at a minimum.