Today we left Kinlochleven and headed to Fort William
Today Mike Z, Ben (Ken) were walking with us and Mike P was reprising walking and providing transport logistics
Kinlochleven was formed from two previously separate small communities – Kinlochmore to the north of the River Leven in Inverness-shire and Kinlochbeg to the south of the Leven in Argyll – following the construction of an aluminium smelter and associated housing for its employees. The processing plant was powered by a hydroelectric scheme situated in the mountains above, and made Kinlochleven the first village in the world to have every house connected to electricity, coining the phrase “The Electric Village”
The weather looked promising today as we crossed the River Leven (in full flow from the hydro plant) and then started the climb out of the village. Ascending 240 metres in 30 minutes after breakfast is not for the faint-hearted – we were all puffing a bit at the top as the climb levelled out.
Mike P did his usual trick of walking up the climb with us and then turning round and walking back down to collect the car before heading to Fort William.
Despite the overcast weather the views were simply wonderful and the streams / waterfalls were in full flow from all the recent rain. The noise of very fast water should be heard well in advance of actually crossing it. The path varied in surface texture meaning some easy walking and some hard walking but overall not as bad as Telford’s Road of yesterday.
As we moved along past Stob Ban (999m) with its head in the clouds and a couple of 900m plus peaks the sun attempted a brief appearance on the other side of the valley, even causing a brief rainbow to appear. We also had some quite windy periods where the low lying cloud was thrown at us – probably not actual rain but it sure felt like it.
The scenery changed somewhat as we moved into the Nevis Forest the scenery (obviously!) changed a lot and then we had our first glimpse of the Fort William area in the distance. Halfway down the long descent, and this time is was actually raining, we passed our 700 mile milestone. Arriving in Fort William we had covered 24 km (15 miles) today, so relatively short compared to other days. Considering the effort to get from Inversnaid to Fort William in 3 days this year (102km / 64 miles and 2,321 metres of ascent) it seems insane that we did that in just two days last year!
Tomorrow we head for Invergarry on the Great Glen Way
You should be able to see the end now lol. Keep going