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                                                                                                                                                                                                                                              Photos © Home At First

 
Hikers nearing the top of the Devil's Staircase: steepest and highest point on Scotland's
West Highland Way long-distance trail. In the background: Buachaille Etive Mhor and Glen Coe.
 

          “Wieso kommen Sie hierher?” I asked in my best German to no one in particular in the middle of the Scotland’s Western Highlands. Several young Germans—perhaps a dozen, all strangers to Scotland—were scattered before me at the top of the pass, sprawled across boulders and standing in small clusters, snacking while taking in the view of Buachaille Etive Mòr, Scotland’s Matterhorn.
          Three of the group of students of university age took an interest in the American walkers who had asked them why they are here. “We come to walk the West Highland Way. Today is our seventh day. We have still today and tomorrow,” came the reply in the starched English of the most daring of the three Germans.

 

 

Young German hiking group snacking at the pass above the Devil's Staircase with Stob Mhic Mhartuin background.
 

           Ask a British walker to rate the greatest long-distance walks in Britain and, chances are, Scotland’s West Highland Way will be near the top of the list. Not the longest, not the highest, not the most demanding, not the most remote, wildest, or loneliest of walking challenges, the West Highland Way simply combines what walkers look for most in a multi-day hike. The south-north path travels 95 miles from 226 feet above sea level at Milngavie (“MILL-guy”) in Scotland’s Lowlands six miles north of Glasgow to about 30 feet above sea level at Ft. William deep in Scotland’s Highlands. Along the way, the path climbs up and over the West Highlands, achieving a top altitude of 1,800 feet atop the Devil’s Staircase, a rugged pass amidst some of Scotland’s most spectacular mountains.
 

 

The West Highland Way enters Glen Coe from the south
via a remote ramp that skirts Rannoch Moor and passes
Black Rock Cottage before reaching the King's House inn.
Photo © HOME AT FIRST
 

          Walked most frequently south-to-north over eight days, the scenic West Highland Way attracts hikers from around the world to experience its cornucopia of famous landscapes: the pristine eastern shore of Loch Lomond with its views of the impressive range of peaks called the Arrochar Alps; the ramp up lonely Glen Falloch to the village of Crianlarich; the remote day between Bridge of Orchy across Rannoch Moor and into Glen Coe; and the approach to Ft. William with glimpses of the highest point in the British Isles, the hulking 4,400 foot high summit of Ben Nevis.

          The day we walked Stage 7 we met people from all over Britain, as well as the German university group and free walkers from America, Canada, and South Africa, almost all walking the entire 95 miles of the West Highland Way. And most of these walkers were surprised to learn that we were doing the Devil’s Staircase as a day hike. We carried day packs with fresh packed lunches instead of heavy packs with supplies for a week on the trail. We had the luxury of choosing our day for the hike. (We prefer mountain walking 

Looking south down the Devil's Staircase to the
A82 at Altnafeadh. Opposite is the landmark
mountain of Glen Coe, Buachaille Etive Mòr.
Photo © HOME AT FIRST
 

and mild breezes.) We avoided the first not-very-interesting 70 minutes of the stage—three miles from King’s House to Altnafeadh closely paralleling route A82 in Glen Coe—by arranging to be dropped off at the parking lot at Altnafeadh at the bottom of the Devil’s Staircase. We had the luxury of taking our time with the walk: we gave ourselves a 5-hour window to do the three-hour crossing, so we lingered over our picnic lunch among some sheltered rocks with a great view of the western end of the Rannoch Moor and the rugged south wall of 1,000m (3,300 feet) high peaks of the Mamores Range. We took pictures. We talked with strangers. We travelled light: light packs, light spirits, no hurry, no worry.

          The German school group—pressing to get to their accommodations at the next stop—passed us while we picnicked in the wilderness. Almost three hours later we saw several of them erecting tents, eating snacks, and wandering aimlessly on the edge of Kinlochleven. They spent most of their day pushing to get someplace, and scant few minutes enjoying the famous environment they had come so far to experience.
 

We lingered over our picnic lunch among some sheltered rocks with a
great view of the western end of Rannoch Moor and the Blackwater Reservoir.
Photo © HOME AT FIRST
 

 
          On the way up the Devil’s Staircase we passed two heavy, middle-aged women in white tennis shoes—a Scot and a Louisiana Cajun—who were new to the mountains and were giggling their way up the trail, stopping every few yards to catch the breath they had lost laughing while climbing. They had no packs, and wore flimsy windbreakers as their only defense against any sudden weather that might surprise us. Freddie and I wondered whether they would make it to the top of the pass, and decided they had parked their car at Altnafeadh and would return to it once they ran out of steam. These two—among the three dozen or more hikers we saw along the West Highland Way during our 3.5 hours on the trail that fine day in September—were the only other day-walkers we encountered.
          The Devil’s Staircase was short, steep, and first. After the half-hour climb, the rest of the walk was a 3-hour descent, mostly in glorious scenery, and mostly not very steep down. The Devil’s Staircase looks south across Glen Coe, one of Scotland’s iconic Highlands valleys, walled with bald sentinel mountains like a chain of enormous bell curves of rock, earth, bracken, and heather, lined with tendrils of watercourses. The dominant round-top opposite the Devil’s Staircase, Buachaille Etive Mòr, may be the most photographed mountain in Scotland. However, viewed from the top of the pass on a sunny day at noon the mountain suffers from poor lighting: the “great shepherd of Etive” is best seen at lower altitudes from the northeast in the low light and stark shadows of dawn.
 

A lochan at the pass with the Mamores
range coming into view to the north.
No midges in early September.
Photo © HOME AT FIRST

          If the scenery of Glen Coe is less than expected, surprising vistas across unpopulated miles of Highland wilderness reward hikers the moment they cross the pass. At the pass—between the high shoulders of Beinn Bheag (east) and Stob Mhic Mhartuin (west)—the ground away from the trail is boggy: high moorland with lochans (ponds), ideal country for midges, the biting flies that can make wetter areas along the trail no place to linger, especially during June-August. (We saw no midges in our early September visit at this, the high point of the West Highland Way.) As the trail begins to slope downhill to the north and west, the valley of the River Leven opens up in front of you. To the northeast a large body of water extends east from the river into the western reaches of the unpopulated wilderness of Rannoch Moor.

This large lake is not a natural loch, but

the Blackwater Reservoir, built a century ago to produce the electricity needed to power an aluminum smelter on the riverside in Kinlochleven. A curtain wall of mountains, the Mamores, serrates the horizon, so high as to hide four of Scotland’s nine highest peaks, including Ben Nevis, immediately behind them.

          For almost an hour the West Highland Way twists its way to the northwest, tracing a mildly descending path well below the rim of this gloriously open bowl, working ever closer to the defile of the River Leven. The trail becomes steep as it nears tree line, makes a sharp reverse S-curve, and joins a service road at a small power station. From here the West Highland Way follows the unpaved service road downhill through birch and pine woods until emerging at the east end of the town of Kinlochleven by the former aluminum smelter.
          Along this road we were treated to eating the dust and exhaust of an old Land Rover charging up the hill on some urgent mission. Then we were overtaken by a lone

Beginning the descent from the pass
northwest across heather-covered
moorland toward the Mamores Range.
Photo © HOME AT FIRST

runner in shorts and sneaks. The West

Highland Way holds an annual race along its 95-mile length over the summer solstice. Runners have 35 hours to complete the course—including nearly 15,000 feet of climbing—from Milngavie to Ft. William. The men’s record: 15¾ hours; the fastest women require an additional 1½ hours.
          Along the wooded switchbacks about 30 minutes before reaching Kinlochleven we encountered a middle-aged woman walking alone south toward the pass. She wore a white T-shirt with a large SCOTLAND in flag blue emblazoned across her ample chest. She wore a big smile, too, but carried no pack and wore sneakers instead of hiking boots. When she asked us if we had seen two women of her age and build along the way, we immediately knew whom she sought. We explained that we could not promise her friends would be very far along the trail, and that they might still be stopping and giggling every few yards. The hour was approaching 3:30PM, but five hours of daylight remained: the ladies would surely find each other. Miss Scotland went on her way, sure to see more of the West Highland Way than she expected.
 

Freddie at the Tailrace Inn, Kinlochleven,
a pleasant place to wait for the ride
back to Central Scotland.
Photo © HOME AT FIRST

          The trail and road follow the rushing waters piped down from the Blackwater Reservoir past the old smelter—defunct since 2000—where they empty into a sluiceway and race to join the River Leven at a roaring waterfall. Just past the falls the road and trail enter the Kinlochleven town (population approx. 1,000) where the valley’s main road, the B863, bridges the River Leven. Kinlochleven, constructed as one-employer town for the aluminum works in 1907, continues to exist today as a way station along the West Highland Way. In the late afternoon hours the town becomes crowded with hikers descending the trail to find their night’s lodging. Turn right here to reach the town’s principal pub and restaurant, the

Tailrace Inn, across route B863 two hundred yards

from the bridge. The Tailrace Inn makes a convenient refreshment stop where the time passes enjoyably while waiting for your ride home. Freddie and I had time for a pint in the pub’s beer garden. The ale was made more welcome by the conversation with other walkers who had just come off the trail and gravitated to the pub.
          We had spent a leisurely hour at the Tailrace Inn when my wife and our friends arrived with the rental car to collect us. They had enjoyed the afternoon in at the small museum in Glencoe village—with its gruesome clan massacre history—and shopping in Ft. William. We had an hour’s ride back to Killin in Central Scotland where our Home At First cottage and dinner at the Falls of Dochart Inn awaited us. Around the dinner table Freddie and I ate well but didn’t talk too much about our day on the trail. I doubt either of us wished to appear smug about how well our day had gone. I certainly didn’t want my wife to know that crossing the Devil’s Staircase was the kind of challenge that made overweight, middle-aged, holiday makers giggle like schoolgirls.

 
LEARN ABOUT HOME AT FIRST TRAVEL TO SCOTLAND.
 
Day-hiking the best portions of the West Highland Way is
possible from HOME AT FIRST’s lodgings in CENTRAL SCOTLAND.

This day trip is one of dozens of activities suggested in
HOME AT FIRST’s "SCOTLAND ACTIVITY GUIDE”
Provided exclusively to HOME AT FIRST guests to Scotland.
 
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