Scotland May 7th - May 16th, 2024
On May 7th we groggily woke up on the train to the Scottish moorland flowing by outside the windows. We managed to order some coffees which were too expensive but came with biscuits. As the train pulled into Fort William we sent a message to my mom not sure if she would receive it or how we would find her if she didn't respond. At the station we piled out of the train and worked to load our bags while tourists wanting pictures with the Hogwarts train on the next track swarmed the platform. It was pretty cute watching kids and adults dressed up as witches pose with a train, due to my general lack of sleep I was a little stressed by the swarm of people.
We rolled out of the station and down Fort William's main pedestrian way. We found my mom waiting for us on a bench in the middle of the road. No problem. She directed us to the closest public bathroom so we could freshen up a little while she guarded 3 people's worth of gear and 2 bikes. She had had no trouble finding a good hotel room and enjoying an extra day in Fort William.
After spending some time in the tourist office - where we got our bearings and were told to not ride bikes as it is far too dangerous - we went to the bike shop and rented Mom an e-bike for the week. They threw in a pair of Ortlieb panniers with the weeklong rental but I wasn't too impressed by the rental worker who didn't know how to attach them to the bike. Ben also managed to book some time for his bike to get some service done that the shop in London didn't do. If you notice we are continuing the theme of visiting every bike shop we can on our route. While waiting for Ben's bike and then waiting for the afternoon ferry we chose our route and got groceries. We were pretty groggy with the night of train sleeping. It kind of worked out that mom had a good night's sleep the night before, so one of us was fully functional.
That evening we got on the smallest ferry we have been on. It connected Fort William to Camusnagaul crossing Loch Linnhe. It was a tiny pedestrian ferry, but they took our bikes. Currently they charge the same for any kind of bike, but after we passed them the e-bike I wouldn't be surprised if they started charging double for e-bikes. To load the bikes onto the boat the workers had to balance on a narrow ledge with the bike in one hand and the other holding on to a small bar. My bike, no problem. Ben's bike... a little heavier. The e-bike almost took the worker down into the water until, with an annoyed look, he adjusted for the weight.
Once on the other side we helped unload and then we had just a few miles to where we wanted to wild camp for the night. It was a beautiful ride on a one lane road with my mom commenting "This is the most beautiful bike ride I have ever been on". Which made my day, and assuaged my worries that we were sandbagging her.
Towards the end of the ride we managed to find a really good wild camping spot. It is at this point Ben and I had to start clarifying to my mom that it won't always be this nice. That we got incredibly lucky. We made a good meal on the camp stoves and quickly went to sleep.
The next morning after a nice breakfast we left our tents set up and loaded our bikes with climbing gear. My mom planned to spend the day hiking along the beautiful creek we camped near. We biked a few miles to the trailhead to a climb that was described in our Scottish mountaineering tome of a guidebook. But the climb was hidden in fog. We couldn't see a thing other than the fact that the rock was wet. We plopped on the side of the road willing the clouds to lift or for some sign that it would be intelligent to try and climb. The fog never lifted and I was starting to feel worse and worse. Ben was feeling defeated and we gave up and rolled back to camp. I said a quick hello to mom before crawling into the tent and taking a nap. Ben spent the time hauling rocks up the hill to continue training. I spent the time trying to not be sick. Mom spent the time hiking as planned.
That afternoon we decided to pack up the tents and head to Glencoe. We had a lovely bike ride to the ferry at Ardgour which connects to Corran crossing the same Loch Linnhe that we had crossed the day before. Back on the Fort William side of Loch Linnhe the road was much busier but there was a bike path paralleling it! A much more stressful ride due to the traffic noise, but not bad as we were not in the road for the most part. The weather was starting to deteriorate as we got closer to a paid camp ground we were aiming for. So of course one of us had to get a flat. It was on the e-bike with its beefy tires. We pulled out the repair kit the rental shop had provided. It did include a spare tube and wimpy tire levers that were not appropriate for these tires. *sigh* We struggled and struggled and after breaking a tire lever we eventually removed the tube, put in the spare and got the tire back on. My mom is wanting to upgrade her bike back home and this e-bike rental is kind of a way to test out if she would want an e-bike but this experience was not a great selling point.
We finally made it to the Glencoe campground and we approached the gate with relief only to find that the office had closed 30 minutes earlier. There was an after hours sign with a doorbell to push and a sign stating "No Pitches Available." Uh-oh. We pushed the button, which didn't seem to do anything. Waited anxiously and looked up the next closest paid for camping and considered our options to wild camp. While we fretted a man came up walking his dog and asking if we had a reservation which we did not. He invited us in and led us to the grassy lawn for tent campers. There was plenty of space. I don't know what "No pitches available" means but it wouldn't be the last time on this trip where the language barrier between English and English made it hard to tell if we would be able to pay to camp somewhere.
With a break in the rain we managed to set up our tents and then head to a backpackers shelter to cook our dinner as it started raining. We crawled into our tents that night grateful we didn't have to cook or do dishes in the rain.
The next morning was not great weather. It was predicted to rain all day. So we spent most of the day in the Glencoe visitor center. They have a museum dedicated to the hill walkers and mountaineers in the area. In which we discovered that the Scottish Mountaineering Club didn't allow women until 1990. Granted women simply made their own Ladies Scottish Climbing Club where they wouldn't have to deal with the men. This trip has made me appreciate more and more that to join the American Alpine Club I simply had to ask to join and pay the yearly dues. I didn't have to get some climber to vouch for me nor did I have to submit my climbs completed for a committee to decide if I had sufficient skills *cough money* to hang. I don't know if I would have gotten into climbing in a different country. Imposter Syndrome may have been too strong to overcome. The organizations that ostensibly are supposed to support people getting into the sport armed the worst gym bros with paperwork. "Like do you even climb bro, on page 2 you list like a 5.4 climb.... bro that's like not even a climb, your climbing membership is like so not granted".
There is also a short film on the massacre that occurred in Glencoe. In a sad reminder about how history repeats or rhymes and some people have the worst luck, one exhibit tells the story of a young boy who survived the massacre, ended up in the colonies and married a Native American woman. Their child was then in a massacre in the United States.
They had a recreated Turf and Creel house from the 19th century. Which was pretty neat to check out. The woven branches forming a fence and the way they stacked the cubes of dirt made really satisfying patterns. It made the time frame seem not that long ago and it also changed my perspective on how the British and Europeans arriving in the Americas would have viewed the people and the houses they encountered in the 17th century. I always had an image of them looking down their noses because it was so antiquated to them....but they were living in the same style of housing!
After some nice soup in the visitor center we biked to town to get a bunch of groceries. Mom asked around to see if there was anywhere to charge her e-bike. No one had any ideas other than "well charge it from where you rented it". We needed an outside outlet and no one had one. So another strike against e-bike ownership. How do you recharge the thing?
Friday was predicted to have some good weather. So Ben and I were looking forward to a multi-pitch climb and mom was looking forward to a nice hike. Ben and I biked up the valley towards the Three Sisters of Glencoe. Hiked in on a nice trail and then diverted onto a climbers trail across a beautiful mountain stream to the base of the multi-pitch climb. It was weeping water and the route looked a little grungy. After some uncertainty and false starts we got to the top of the first pitch. Ben picked up someone's forgotten nut along the way. The last pitch took Ben a minute while he figured out which way to go and made an ok anchor. We made it to the top of the climb, frustrated by our book’s lack of good info on the climb and a little shocked that we hadn't seen any other climbers. Then we tried to get down...There was no obvious way down. What the book described did not exist. There was sketchy tat, Ben wanted to use a boulder that moved and finally we set up an anchor that I felt comfortable rapping off of. We made it to the bottom and looked around again at what the book described as the way down and could NOT find a way that made any sense. Sorry Scotland we left some tat.
We biked back to camp spending some time on gravel roads for fun and swapped stories with mom over a good dinner. She has climbed up the hill overlooking the campground. The trail ended up being a little more rowdy than she had wanted it to be as well.
Saturday was an even better weather day so Ben and I had a hill scramble planned and mom had a river hike planned. Ben and I didn't think we could bike the whole distance and do the climb so we decided to hitchhike. We waited maybe 10 minutes before a lady pulled over for us. We had to rearrange some stuff and we chatted about her trip in the area. She had an ice ax. She said she brought it for Ben Nevis just in case but she said it was snow free which was good news for us. She dropped us off at the trailhead and we started our scramble up the Curvd Ridge of Buachaille Etive Mor with fresh legs. This time we had plenty of other climbers passing us on the approach and we ended up passing a couple of parties on the way up. Even though we packed the rope we ended up not needing it and just had a great time scrambling up the mountain and popping out on top. There was a HUGE group of hill walkers at the summit enjoying the view. Mostly they had come up the way we were going to hike down. This was a nice sign since the previous day we had such a hard time finding the route down. We knew we wouldn't have that problem today! So we relaxed and ate some food but decided to get ahead of the big group of hikers so we wouldn't have to pass them on the narrow trail down.
On the way down we saw a grandparent with a toddler in a harness on a climbing rope. The parents loped along beside them with larger packs clearly hauling everything for the four of them. This is why Nebraskans just can't compete. That kid was happy as could be as they approached the top of this mountain that had left a few adults in tears. We headed down the incredibly steep trail. I could see why they had the toddler on a leash. We made it down and collapsed near the trailhead. A few weeks earlier we had spent 5 hours in Hitchcock nature center trying to get this level of vertical gain. The trail we just descended did that in an hour.
We hitchhiked back to camp with a nice Dutch man alone in a big rental car. He bemoaned how wasteful the US is with energy and how we could single handedly bring down a lot of greenhouse gas emissions if we simply adopted European standards in cars. When we got out of the car at the entrance to the campground the host told us we cheated because we didn't bike that day. We swapped stories at camp with Mom who had a great time on the trail along the creek in the base of the valley. "Prettiest trail I have been on".
The next day was Mothers' Day. So I took Mom on her first hitchhiking adventure. The road Ben and I had biked to get up the valley was a stressful ride. They are building a bike path that when that is completed will be so nice. In the meantime, we were riding on a fast narrow two lane highway. Mom did not care for the idea of biking it, but I wanted her to see some of the areas up valley.
So Mom and I stood outside of the visitor center exit and stuck out our thumbs. Within 10 minutes a nice climber pulled over and we rearranged some items for the three of us to fit in. We chatted about ice climbing in the area and he dropped us off at the busy trail head. Mom and I had a nice hike up the trail Ben and I had used as an approach trail a few days earlier.
We hitchhiked back to camp with a nice couple. We got picked up quickly and people were nice to chat with. It was a good first hitchhiking experience for my mom! We met back up with Ben who spent the day taking care of bike chores and getting groceries.
The next day we biked back to Fort William. We took the same route back as we took to get to Glencoe. We didn't want to be on the busy side of the Loch. So we biked back to the ferry, no flats on this part this time! We had planned to eat at the bar on the far side of the ferry, but when we got there we discovered it was closed for the day. *Sigh.* We have enough calories but we wanted greasy calories. We biked north on the single lane road enjoying the chill ride and pretty scenery. We made it to the dock with plenty of time before the ferry for some rock skipping, napping, and weight training with panniers. There was even a bar to use for pull ups! Some backpackers walked up and set up to wait as we were working out and they seemed a little confused by us.
The tiny ferry arrived and we piled back on with all of our stuff and the bikes getting strapped to the front and back of the boat. On the far side of the Loch we unloaded in Fort William feeling fairly happy with how little rain we had encountered that day despite the forecast. We were looking forward to a night in a hostel. So we loaded up our bikes and loaded up a map to direct us from the main street to the hostel in the northern part of the city.
Just as we were leaving the main busy pedestrian street my mom lost balance on the bike and landed hard on her elbow. We got her and the bike up, her arm was bleeding pretty good. She pulled out her multi use bandana handkerchief and told me to wrap it and we would do a better assessment of the wound in the hostel where we could clean it up better. The ride to the hostel took longer than anticipated. We also needed to stop at a grocery store on the way (always need more calories) and of course it started sprinkling. With some false turns on google we eventually found the hostel and checked in. It was quiet and nice and dry and had a place to store our bikes out of the rain.
We got mom's wound cleaned up. I was fascinated by a stretchy bit of something coming out of the wound, and for the first time we got to use our first aid kit on this trip! We left the hostel and the bikes behind and walked to a nearby restaurant that had a surprisingly good Mongolian beef dish.
The next day we woke up and made a really nice breakfast in the hostel kitchen - I love smoked salmon! The three of us biked to Glen Nevis and checked in to the campground and set up our tents. Then the three of us biked into town to return Mom's e-bike. At the bike shop we got the bike returned and got mom's backpack which the shop had stored for her. Mom transformed from bikepacker to backpacker. We split up and she headed to the bus stop to get to Glen Nevis. Ben and I headed to the grocery store for ever more calories before heading back to camp. Before dinner Ben and I needed to keep training for the alps so we headed to a steep trail and did an interval run up the trail. The rain kindly waited until we were on the cool down and walking back to camp.
The next few days Ben and I biked up Glen Nevis to the climbing area while mom checked out hikes in the area. Our first day in the area we wasted time following the wrong climber's trail, but eventually found the routes we wanted and had a good time. The second day we knew the area so we were able to find the route we wanted much quicker. I got in a few good leads which I had been avoiding due to still being nervous about my back and how it would handle a lead fall.
We ran into an outdoor ed group who were playing with rappels in the area. We also ran into a guide and his client who was trying to get into climbing. It was a nice safe playground for new climbers. The guide encouraged Ben to lead up a scary looking crack which ended up being very fun. After that we set up a silly top rope on a blank section of the wall next to the crack and had a fun time flailing on a safe top rope.
Mom had spent the day hiking up the valley and we ended up passing her on our bikes on the way down. I was planning on biking back to her after dropping off the climbing gear, but she moved faster than I gave her credit for and she was back at camp before I had finished unpacking the bike.
Amidst the climbs, our alps training also involved filling our backpacks with rocks and walking up the start of the Ben Nevis trail. We make life needlessly hard sometimes...but theoretically it will make life easier later...
Beautiful photos!! I would move into that house too XD
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