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,

The geology of Glencoe is so complex and varied that I almost dare not speak of it. It is famous for being the first recognised caldera volcano and my first thought on looking around was how? It is not obvious to the lay person that this landscape is a collapsed cauldron and the geological events that have occurred since, such as the movement of the land from the southern hemisphere to the north and the numerous collisions with continents that happened along the way, have deformed the circle and made it a mangled ellipse. The subsequent ice ages have sliced a deep valley through the caldera walls, further obscuring the landscape. The Glencoe mountain resort on the very eastern edge of the caldera, is maybe not the best place to appreciate the geology. On today’s route the West Highland Way heads down the glen, following the scrape of the glacier on its slide to the sea, until the route turns to climb the Devil’s Staircase. However the top of the Devil’s Staircase lies under the peak of

The Gaelic poet Duncan Ban Macintyre was born and raised on the southern side of Loch Tulla in  Druim Liaghart .    When he was young he courted the daughter of the Landlord of the Inveroran Hotel,  Màiri bhàn òg.  In his poems he observed the busy lives of the villagers; farming, hunting, fishing and weaving; the social life of the village, of fairs, music and song. His works captured the essence of  a living vibrant community. Coming down to Inveroran Inn On a bright sunny day such as today it would be easy to image that this place could be busy with people going about their business, more difficult to understand how they would cope in the depths of winter. But people did subsist, although admittedly the living was difficult. The Highlands was thronged with crofters. For the land owners there were better ways to make money than rely on the meagre rents of their tenants and (especially after the '45 Jacobite rebellion) ridding the land of the quarrelsome Jacobites and farming shee

At a sign for a massage service above Crianlarich, the paths forked as the Way turned north westward through Plantation forest. The path sloped gently uphill through stands of Sitka spruce and Lodgepole Pine. In the undergrowth was a surprising amount of fungi and in a pleasant glade we sat down and enjoyed our lunch of biscuits and fruit while occasionally heading off to document yet another fungi find. Amanita Puffball Dyer's polypore Don't know The weather, which for most of the morning had been overcast and threatening began to cheer up. Plantation forest is often quite bleak but this particular spot, being so full of fungi, did not feel as oppresive as the forests along the Pennine Way. However as we reached the top the view ahead was of a huge area that was once trees that had recently been cleared and replanted. In the valley we crossed the river Fillan and the main road. On the other side in the ever increasing sunshine we headed towards a curiously weathered sign. Curi

Old hands will remember what happened on the Pennine Way when my brand new boots started shipping water, were fire damaged and then fell apart. On my return from the Pennine Way I argued the case with the shop and got a refund. Some weeks later I bought a reassuringly expensive German make, they were made of leather, lithe, bold and handsome, and came with a two year guarantee.  Some time later on a Thursday practice walk the three of us had got together. We were walking along the Essex coast line and both Chris and Jerome were bemoaning the state of their boots because of cracks in the leather that appeared to be letting in water. Later that evening as I cleaned off the mud I found to my dismay that similar cracks were occurring. This was two months beyond the guarantee period.  So I went to buy some new boots, this time from a manufacturer which, based upon my own experience, I could trust to be longer-lasting. The first occasion I walked with them I was surprised to get a blister on

To quote Stephenson and Gould in British regional geology: the Grampian Highlands, fourth edition, 2007 when discussing the features you might expect to see in this part of Scotland,  'Metagreywackes, siliceous psammites and fine-grained quartzites are interbedded with the predominant well-foliated green schists containing abundant chlorite, epidote, biotite and albite porphyroblasts.' Well, quite, I couldn't have put it better myself.  When I was young we lived in London and I would often head in the school holidays to the museums in South Kensington. The big draw these days is the Natural History museum but back then dinosaurs weren't quite as popular as they are today and much of the ground floor was a series of somewhat lacklustre dioramas that were populated with a cast of vaguely unsettling stuffed animals.   Around the corner in Exhibition Road was the Science museum which became a big favourite with me mainly due to the number of interactive displays. The joy