Kinghouse to Kinlochleven

The scenery is all starting to merge together. One day of walking is starting to look no different then the next. In fact looking at the photos I could just be staying in the same place and merely taking photos of the same mountains but from different directions surrounded by different amounts of cloud. The green treeless mountains surrounded by clouds and fog. I still think it is very pretty. I decided today that I don't think I could live in Scotland. It is too wet and cloudy and dreary. Sometimes I visit places and I think to myself how wonderful it would be to live in such a place but although I have enjoyed the ruggedness and beauty, I don't want to live here. My ancestors were wise moving to Canada. The hike today went through a mountain pass. It probably commanded the biggest elevation gain followed by a drop into the village of Kinlochleven. The toughest part of the walk was supposed to be the Devil's staircase. It certainly sounded very ominous but it was merely switch backs through a mountain pass. Although strenuous it was not as hard as many of the hikes we have done in the Rockies. It was then a long descent into Kinlochleven. I think descents are harder on the feet than ascents. I met a group of 19 Virginians spread out along the trail. I walked for a while with a young woman from London who was camping solo and trying to get a few miles out of Fort William by tonight so she would only require a mile or two hike to the train station. She will have done the hike in pretty well 5 days. She said she had blisters and was limping. She told me that she just wanted to finish. I imagine she was going to do 24 miles today. She was moving at a good clip so I just had to let her go. The campers and the five day hikers don't seem to be enjoying themselves as much as the 7 and 8 day BNB ers. I had expected to come across the flip-flop man collapsed in the heather and left for dead along the path but was fortunate not to have found him. Hopefully he made it the day before. Kinlochleven was a village dependent on an Aluminium smelter for its economic well-being. Water from an adjacent reservoir was diverted through pipes coming down from the pass generated electricity for the smelter. The smelter which had employed 700 people had closed in 1996 and we all know the economic story of one industry towns who's major employer shuts down. With WHW tourism things seemed to have bounced back a little. BnBs never replace heavy industry jobs. I don't want to live here. They did turn one of the smelters into a climbing gym and what was really neat was that one of the walls was a refrigerated ice climbing wall. It looked rather neat. I watched the women's soccer game last night with a Dutch couple and an American couple. I met them wandering around town and we planned to meet tonight to watch the Dutch play Sweden. I found a house decorated with lots of Garden gnomes. I love gnomes.Read more