by Rachel Kruft Welton
Lagangarbh Mountain Hut is situated in the Highlands at the foot of Buachaille Etive Mor, an imposing mountain surrounded by purple heather, blue Devil's bit scabious and vicious Scottish midges.It is one of those places so remote that I wasn't given an address by the custodian, merely a grid reference. The water supply has a brown tinge and tastes of peat. All drinking water needs to be boiled, and the warning sign inside the hut suggested we should be careful not to swallow water whilst showering. We like to live dangerously, however, and managed to live through the week unscathed, despite brushing our teeth in the unboiled bog-water that came out of the tap.The hut is separated from the track by a brook with a footbridge and a short hike through the heather. Everything had to be carried up to the cottage in several trips. We had the place to ourselves, apart from the odd hiker peering through the window as he or she passed. (We usually caught a glimpse of their rapidly retreating form, legging it away down the glen in an embarrassed manner, once they realised the hut was occupied.)The Met Office had threatened rain for Tuesday. The cloud obscured the top of Beinn Bheag opposite, despite it being half the height of Ben Nevis. We hung around the hut, barricading ourselves in against the blackfly. There was a lack of toys for the kids, which probably precipitated the building of Stonehenge out of Jenga bricks before venturing out.Glencoe, the valley, is amazing - sheer mountains rise almost vertically from the flat bottomed valley floor. It is nearly a perfect U shape, carved by glaciers over 10,000 years ago. We stopped at several scenic parking spots to take photos in the mist. There was a waterfall, which was pretty, but the stars of the show were the mountains. The colours seemed intense in the damp air - green, brown, grey and white. A highland piper serenaded multi-national tourists with his bagpipes. Tour buses from all over the world stopped in the lay-by disgorging their cargo to look at the scenery. The drone from the bagpipes carried down into the valley, where we and just a handful of others were walking. Most tourists stopped only long enough to take a photo of themselves standing next to the strange musician in his kilt, before leaping back into the safety of their cars and tour buses. I see the hills and want to walk on them, to really experience them. Others see a pretty view. 'Snap' and it is stored away in digital memory. Experience over.
Inchree
We'd booked an experience through Vertical Descent in Inchree. We signed up for canyoning down Inchree Falls. This involves scrambling and sliding down numerous waterfalls and clambering over rocks for a couple of hours. The biggest challenge for me, however, appeared to be how to get into a neoprene wetsuit designed for thin people with no boobs (skinny men, in other words). I felt trussed up like a chicken, and once the life-jacket was added, I could hardly breathe, let alone swim. Bending to scramble seemed virtually impossible. I was puffing like an old horse and about as graceful as King Kong on the dance-floor. I thought I was going to faint - and that was just on the walk in.Once in the cold water, the suffocating feeling eased, but the inability to move fluidly didn't. Neoprene plus life-jacket = cushioning from rocks when sliding down a gully, followed by floating instead of swimming. This then leads to a flailing and floundering exhibition, instead of positive graceful swimming, and a kind of beached whale event upon arrival at the far bank.Despite this, it was excellent fun. Donny and Mel were up for everything - jumping in off the side from three metres up, sliding down 16 feet of waterfall and inching their way across the face of the falls whilst the spray drummed on their helmets.The final hurdle is a zip-wire above a 37ft falls. It is one of those zips that drops you about three metres before catching your weight and sliding you into the water. I was last, of course -I'd been bringing up the rear all along - so I'd watched everyone else do it. Anticipation is a terrible thing! In the end, I just jumped as though I was going to land in the water, and it wasn't too lurchy. The fear of the drop is what puts you off jumping. I landed inelegantly, backwards, with a massive splash. I surfaced to see one of the leaders taking photos of me. Hmm.
Kinlochleven
Tendrils of cloud wrapped themselves around buttresses high on the mountains. Fingers of mist probed the gullies and gorges, not quite willing to let go, but unable to hold on for very long. The sun broke through in patches.We set off from the very eastern end of Loch Leven, where the town of Kinlochleven nestles. The path is waymarked and promised waterfalls. It weaves up through a witchy forest, between silver birch and aspen, crusty with lichen and damp with multicoloured moss. The path is stony and shifted underfoot.The waterfall remained tantalisingly elusive. It is called the Grey Mare's Tail Falls, and the glimpses of it through the trees showed a long streak of white water, which could, with a little imagination, resemble a horse's tail. There was no clear stunning view of it though, and this felt somewhat frustrating, given it was signposted as the Waterfall Trail.
After crossing a few fords, and putting the steepest section behind us, we passed a large group of teenagers with matching orange rucksacks and glowing red faces. The race was now on to reach the top of the hill before them. We headed up, across the bare slope. The path didn't rise above 350m, so we barely hit the hill-fog. We did spend the whole day putting our waterproofs on and taking them off again, as the weather changed every ten minutes.The teenagers passed us while we were having lunch, but we soon caught up and overtook when they stopped for theirs. After that, I think they must have taken a different route, as they didn't pass us again. Either that, or they are still sitting there, looking bewildered.Loch Elide Mor finally came into view, blue and shimmering. We stayed on the pebbly shore for quite some time, skimming stones and throwing in big ker-plunk ones. Mel managed to step off a rock and flood his boot, in what is starting to feel like a family ritual part of any day out now.The route back took us down the far side of the valley, a little higher than we had been, but a little shorter too. Both the kids were getting tired. Donny manifests this as whining for food. Mel expresses it by sitting down and refusing to move. I dosed both with chocolate and Hula Hoops. We took frequent diversions to investigate mushrooms and cranberries, and to pick wild raspberries. We even saw some pyramid orchids in the heather.Mallaig
Tickets were virtually sold out so we arrived at Fort William station by 8.25am and stood in the queue. We were the third family. Half an hour later, the steam train puffed into the station and we got the last but three tickets. By this time the queue was maybe ten families long, so not everyone was successful. We had tickets, but we didn't have seats. We got the little half-bench bum-perches in the buffet car, meaning we had to assume a kind of tortuous stress position for the two and a half hour journey each way. We took a quick look round Fort William before the train left at 10.20am. The scenery is the big draw on this route and, despite the occasional shower, the views were stunning. I tried to take pictures through the window, but they weren't very good. They varied between 'look at my lovely reflection' and 'oops, I missed it and photographed a bush instead'. The engine was called The Great Marquess, and the train was known as the Jacobite, but the kids were only interested in the Hogwarts Express. It crossed the Glenfinnan Viaduct, as seen in the flying car scene in the second Harry Potter movie. Then there was a half hour stop at Glenfinnan station to allow the tourists (i.e. us) to look round the tiny museum, buy a souvenir and give their loose change to the young bagpiper trying to raise cash for his university education. Back on the train, we got some more scenery on the way to Mallaig. We did see Eigg and Skye through the mist, their shapes phantasmal on the horizon. Mallaig is a fishing village, famous for kippers. We stood on the dock and ate our sandwiches in the rain. The kids bought some gifts and I got to check my e-mails. There wasn't much to do. In the end, we found the fisherman's mission and their secondhand bookshop, which certainly kept Donny amused on the journey back.The scenery was just as scenic on the return journey, if not better in the occasional patch of sun. Donny read her book, and made herself more and more comfortable, until she was actually lying down on the bum-perch. I stared out of the window and wished I had a seat. Mel informed Neil, the chief caterer, that his price-list was all wrong because he had labelled it all as p instead of £. He tried to buy a very cheap bottle of champagne for 25p but Neil pointed out that he was underage.
First published in VISA 96 (Apr 2011)
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