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Showing posts from June, 2023

18: Kinlochleven to Fort William

At just over 16 miles and with over two thousand feet of elevation gain, today's walk is one of the longer days of our itinerary. It also probably everyone's last day as there's no possibility of breaking the journey and yesterday's itinerary from Kingshouse to Kinlochleven also had no obvious rest stop for those without a tent.   In terrible conditions it is possible to shorten the route by taking the military road as it forks beside the ruins of the old toll house above Lundavra. This route leads more directly to Fort William and shaves three miles from the journey, but that would mean missing out on Glen Nevis and (if we are lucky) a view of Scotland's mightiest mountain. The pipes for the hydro-electric power station snake down the mountain behind Kinlochleven The Way climbed rapidly out of the town and over a mile we scaled seven hundred feet. Soon we have a view over the Loch and back to the town.  Carrying on, we walked along the Lairigmor , or the Big Pass,

17: Devils Staircase to Kinlochleven

The view looking east from the top of the Devil’s staircase is a vast panorama of mountains and valley.   I did say that from this point is might be possible to gather a better picture of the caldera and maybe, if you have a working knowledge of geology, it is possible to pick out the tell-tale features of a collapsed volcanic ring. However I can only take my hat off to the Victorian pioneers who came to this conclusion, when it would have been a lot easier to explain the whole process at some other site that hadn’t experienced further volcanic activity and then had glaciers crashing through the entire landscape, thereby obscuring the original structures.   Although this is the point where the original fracture occurred that caused the volcano, this is no longer the centre of the caldera, we are in fact on the northern edge. Looking east, the glacier crashed through the walls, flattening the caldera.  It rises up above the Glencoe mountain resort and then heads to Stob Dubh to the sou