It rained heavily overnight, and I woke to find that my tent was now sitting in running water. Blessings be upon my beautiful tent, the only strike through was onto the bottom of my mat, so my sleeping bag and clothes were all dry. I changed and packed as well as I could in the cramped tent interior, before hurriedly packing down the sopping tent. To my disgust the inside of the tent fly was coated in dead and dying midges, stuck to the wet fabric. Miraculously I was first packed up, and fidgeted as the midges began to swarm while Katya and Charlie readied. The track is an old military road, and steadily climbed up and around the side of the hills, and then down to the road in the next valley. The rain became increasingly heavy towards lunch, whipping into our faces and sneaking down jacket collars and sleeves. We arrived at Kingshouse having made good time, and skulked into the foyer of this sophisticated hotel feeling out of place. The waistcoat-ed staff seemed unfazed by our bedraggled appearance however, and smoothly took our orders. The floor to ceiling windows offered splendid views of the surrounding mountains, which have now becoming truly impressive, smooth sided lower slopes and scarred peaks. Opposite the Glencoe ski field was a torrent of streams down a steep slope, and two red deer grazed just over the pond. The area felt a lot like the mountains around the Routeburn in New Zealand, although I feel our mountains are more jaggedly cragged compared to these. We all thoroughly enjoyed our lunch, and I can highly recommend the Kingshouse hotel for food and service.
We reluctantly departed hours later, into a brief break in the rain, and were pleasantly surprised to meet Sally, just ahead of us, having walked all the way from Bridge of Orchy that morning. Now with the Rochoish bothy crew back together we headed for the "Devil's staircase" a series of steep switchbacks rising 300m. The weather gave us a truly atmospheric experience, wind strong enough to lean into and sharply lashing rain, but the clouds remained high enough to leave us views back down the valley and then ahead from the saddle. Katya was against the odds walking in her sandals, which made for difficult footing on the larger stones of the path. This meant I stopped occasionally to wait for the others and consequently didn't even get out of breath on this notorious section of track. I'm possibly a little smug about that.
At the top we shared a round of Katya's slivovice to celebrate the milestone, certainly it warmed the throat against the freezing conditions.
I felt like it should all be downhill from there, but as with any trail it rose and fell along the mountainsides before finally descending into Kinlochleven.
That evening I discovered my rice risotto sachet would take 20 minutes to cook - far too long for me to want to do on my gas stove and in the presence of midges, so I prepared myself for a meal of plain pasta again. However I also had a sachet of mushroom cup-a-soup in my bag, and in a stroke of culinary inspiration stirred this into the partially drained pasta, with a generous handful of smoked cheddar cheese - the result was far better than expected and I will likely make it a hiking staple!
This was our last night on the trail, so Charlie, Katya, Sally, and I all limped out for a drink in the nearest pub - once again proving that no matter how beautiful the scenery, it is the people you meet along the way that truly make a journey incredible.
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