Great Glen Way completed

Loch Ness

"Your country consists of two things, stone and water. There is, indeed, a little earth above the stone in some places, but a very little; and the stone is always appearing. It is like a man in rags; the naked skin is still peeping out."

--Boswell: Journal of a Tour to the Hebrides (quoting Samuel Johnson's taunts about Scotland)

Remember, to begin with, that the Great Glen Way runs in roughly the same latitudes as a route from Sitka, Alaska, to Juneau.  June nights do get dark, but not totally for much more than a couple of hours.  Remember, also, that the Great Glen Way runs from the Irish Sea to the North Sea, both seas being the source of a heck of a lot of moisture, even in summer. 

We enjoyed the long hours of daylight, and escaped almost entirely the expected precipitation.  Locals spoke in wonder of the local "drought" -- eleven days without rain.

The Great Glen itself is a geologic fault between what was at one time the continent of Europe to the south and the continent of North America to the north.  Like other faults, such as the San Andreas fault south of San Francisco, it reveals itself as a depression in the earth which has been filled with a series of long, narrow lakes.  Because of slippage along the fault line, the geology and flora is different on opposite sides of each lake ("loch").

Samuel Johnson, in his inimitable fashion, was describing the highland portions of Scotland, areas whose top soil had been stripped off by the last glaciers.  The area of the lochs along the Great Glen, however, supports beautiful forests and other lush vegetation.

And so we prepared for our six days of hiking.

After four of us had climbed Ben Nevis (prior post), our other four hikers arrived from Edinburgh -- Jim's brother John and sister Anne, and their respective spouses Ann and Tony.  We spent a pre-hike day together, hiring a ride to the Isle of Skye in the Inner Hebrides, and exploring it by vehicle.  We drove from the mainland at Kyle of Lochalsh by a fairly recent bridge, viewed Eilean Donan castle, drove north as far as Portree (Skye's largest town), returned south, and re-crossed to the mainland at Mallaig by ferry.  Skye's scenery was striking, almost Alaskan in its mountains and open plains.

By then, my toe (injured descending from Ben Nevis) was much better, and we were all eager to begin walking.

The Great Glen Way feels like two distinct hikes, joined at Fort Augustus, where we stayed an extra day.  The first three days follow the flat banks of the Caledonia Canal, which extends from Fort William all the way to Inverness.  The canal joins a series of lochs of slightly varying elevations, with locks permitting passage of boats, mainly pleasure vessels, between the lochs.  ("The locks between the lochs," as I joked perhaps once too often.)  The first day took us to the shore of Loch Lochy; the second day, we hiked the length of Lochy; and the third day we walked the length of Loch Oich and on to Fort Augustus on the southern end of Loch Ness.

Our day of leisure in Fort Augustus had as a highlight an 8 p.m. cruise of the near end of Lake Ness.  The boat's guide was well educated and articulate in his lecture.  The boat also provided a means by which we were able to photograph "Nessie" -- the Lake Ness monster.  Far be it from me to pass up the opportunity, which I believe everyone else in our group was happy to do.

The second three days provided very different hiking experience.  Rather than hike the tow paths along the canal or the lakeshore along the lochs, each day we climbed high above Loch Ness, through dense forest into expansive high country moorland.  And the hikes were longer.  The second to the last day, from Invermoriston to Drumnadrochit was 14 miles, and the final leg into Inverness (from which three of our group opted out, taking a local bus instead) was 18 miles.  The hikes were tiring, but the scenery -- of Loch Ness below and of the mountains and moorlands above -- was striking.

We had a final dinner together in Inverness, with everyone but Jim, Dorothy, and me leaving early the next morning.  We three took an afternoon train, spending the morning on a visit to the Battlefield of Culloden, some five miles from Inverness.  Culloden was the battle, in 1746, where the English finally defeated the Jacobite forces of Bonnie Prince Charlie.  The battle effectively ended -- until recently -- Scotland's efforts to obtain independence.  The English forces of the Duke of Cumberland refused quarter, killing all Scottish soldiers who were injured or captured.  For years following the battle, the English launched punitive expeditions into Scottish villages suspected of Jacobite sympathies,  slaughtering all inhabitants.

Following that rather grim look at history, we took the train back to Glasgow, a final dinner, and flights home.  An enjoyable hike with excellent company.