Stormfronts and Self Reflection : Tyndrum to Kingshouse

"The mind is its own place, and in itself can make a heaven of hell, a hell of heaven.”

 

 John Milton.

 

Into the Rain

 

The rain never really let up overnight. Although we had been dry, warm, and perfectly fine inside our Hobbit Hut, opening the door that morning revealed a very different scene outside. Dozens of people who had camped through the storm were wringing out clothes and sleeping bags, pouring water out of tents, and trying to gather themselves for another day on the trail.  As it turned out, several had abandoned their tents altogether and taken refuge in the washrooms to stay warm and dry.

 

Not for the first time, we wondered whether our trusted Big Agnes tent would have held up, as it so often had in difficult weather. Were the sodden tents around us the result of inexpensive gear from places like Trespass or Go Outdoors, or simply the sheer amount of water that had fallen from the skies in the Scottish Highlands? It was difficult to know. Either way, we were deeply grateful for the strange twist of luck that had placed us under a roof for the night.

 

Thanking St. Roch and our good fortune, we ate in our hut, cleaned up, and packed our dry gear and backpacks. With only about twenty kilometres to trek that day on the West Highland Way, we decided to wait out the worst of the morning rain rather than rush straight back into it. By 10 AM, the rain had eased to a drizzle, and so we headed out. Within an hour, however, the heavy rain returned, and before long, we too were soaked.  Sometimes there is no way around the realities of the world.

 

Departing Tyndrum

 

Leaving Tyndrum, we crossed a busy road and began walking up another roadway. Ahead of us, groups marched shoulder to shoulder across the entire lane, not even giving way when cars honked for them to move aside. The route soon led off-road to an exposed stretch of trail, where a cold wind pushed through the valley amid low-hanging fog and cloud.

 

We navigated a slippery, rocky track that at times wove beneath the railway lines that divided the landscape, then continued onward through conditions that encouraged little more than putting our heads down and pushing forward. I am sure this region would have been beautiful in pleasant weather, but we remember little of this stretch in detail. Rain has a way of focusing your attention to simply moving onward.  As a result, it also reduces moments to what is immediately necessary to get through it.

Blessedly, much of the trail here was a simple, wide, straight track that allowed us to make progress without dealing with deep mud or difficult footing. Around us, the hillsides shifted beautifully in size and shape as clouds and fog rolled through the exposed valley. Even in poor weather, there was a sense of scale to the landscape, but it was a scale we experienced mostly through movement rather than long moments of watching. We were back in the rain, and the day had begun as so many UK trail days had begun, wet and chilled.

 

Online Illusions and Lived Realities

 

At one point, after crossing through a set of gates, we found two hikers we had come to know over the past couple of days – one of whom was crying on the side of the trail. We stopped to check in and offer what comfort we could, though there are moments on the trail when there is very little anyone can really say. They were soaked, tired, discouraged, and clearly struggling with the gap between what they had imagined the West Highland Way would be and what the day had actually become.

As we stood there in the rain, the young man looked at us and asked, with complete frustration, “Why the F do vloggers never show this sort of weather? They are always trekking in perfect sun and are always comfortable! But this isn’t like that! Nothing out here is like it is on YouTube!”

It was a blunt and unexpected question, but also a fair one. So much of how trails are presented online leans toward ease, beauty, and success. Perfect views, dry gear, smiling faces, golden light, triumphant finishes. There is nothing wrong with sharing those moments - they are sometimes real too - but when they become the whole story, they can create a kind of toxic positivity around adventure.  Because of these types of presentations, the outdoors has increasingly become performative.  Full of epic selfies, terrific friendships, and easy trekking.   Yet, if every hike looks sunny, comfortable, and effortless, then a wet, miserable, difficult day can begin to feel like personal failure rather than simply part of the experience.

 

We understood that feeling. People sometimes see us as Royal Canadian Geographical Society Fellows, long-distance walkers, or experienced hikers and assume that we move through trails without struggle. But we have cried on trails. We have argued on the side of the path. We have been exhausted, wet, uncertain, overwhelmed, frightened, frustrated, and disappointed.  We have had days on the Bruce Trail, the Camino, the Trans Canada Trail, and now here in Scotland, when the reality of walking bore very little resemblance to the polished version people often imagine, see in videos or pictures online.

 

We read guidebooks, look at maps, check forecasts, watch videos, and try to understand what lies ahead. Yet again and again, we are reminded that descriptions can only go so far. A guidebook map, a sunny video, or even our own assumptions can create a sense of a place that bears little resemblance to what happens when you are actually standing there in the rain, wearing wet clothes, with miles still to go.

 

We wished the two hikers luck, offered what encouragement we could, and eventually continued on. But their question stayed with me. It seemed to capture something important about this day, and perhaps about long-distance walking more generally. The trail does not owe you the version you saw online. It gives you the day it gives you, and sometimes that day is wet, uncomfortable, and far tougher than it is beautiful.

 

Cumulative Fatigue

Wishing that we could have done more for them, we eventually continued on. The route followed power lines as it wove through the lush valley, the track stretching ahead beneath low cloud and shifting rain. Under different conditions, it might have felt like an easier section of the day, but by then our bodies were carrying far more than the weight of our packs.

 

It is worth pausing here to say that by the time we reached this stage of the West Highland Way, we had already been travelling for a month and a half. We had crossed Canada by train aboard VIA Rail’s Canadian, sailed across the Atlantic on Queen Mary 2, then walked Wainwright’s Coast to Coast and the Pennine Way before coming north to Scotland. This was not a single trail taken in isolation. It was another chapter in a much longer chain of movement. 

Amid those two previous trails in England, it had rained almost every day. The Coast to Coast had already demanded long wet days, long stages, and constant adaptation. The Pennine Way had added its own challenges, made heavier by weather, distance, and the loss of most of Sean’s photographs from that route. By the time we reached Scotland, our exhaustion was no longer something that could be fixed by one good night’s sleep. It had become ingrained and was bone deep.

 

I say this not as an excuse, but as context. Even on days when the trail itself seemed easier underfoot, fatigue and frustration surfaced in other ways. It showed up in our patience, in our reactions, in how much space we needed, and in how difficult it became to absorb one more downpour, one more awkward interaction, or one more unexpected obstacle.

 

Long-distance walking often looks like a series of separate stages on a map: today’s distance, tomorrow’s climb, the next town, the next break at a café,  the next campsite. But neither the body nor the mind experiences it that neatly. Fatigue accumulates. Weather accumulates. Frustration accumulates. Small things that might have passed unnoticed at the beginning of a journey begin to sit differently when you are already tired, wet, and worn thin.

 

For us – for right or for wrong - that was the undercurrent of this day. The West Highland Way was not technically beyond us. The track was often clear, the route well marked, and the distance manageable. But we were not meeting it as rested hikers beginning a fresh adventure. We were meeting it as two people who had already hiked for 30 days beforehand. 

 

As we followed the trail through the valley, all of this came with us. It shaped what we noticed, what we missed, how we responded, and how difficult it became to keep moving forward. The rain was only part of the day’s challenge. The deeper challenge was that we were no longer simply tired from the morning. We were tired from everything that had come beforehand and the distances that we knew we still had to go before our time in the UK came to an end.

 

Devil at the Crossroads

 

After some time and a great deal of rain, we crossed beneath the tracks near a railway station and followed the roadway down toward a major highway, arriving in the community of Bridge of Orchy tired, wet, and uncomfortable - which is never the best state in which to make decisions. It was at that moment that a gentleman with a daypack marched up and began yelling at us.

Apparently, we had upset him earlier by passing him on the path. He told us that our speed with large backpacks had made him feel slow, and that we were “making him look like a fool by jumping the queue like jacked-up idiots.” It was such a strange accusation that, for a moment, I do not think either of us quite knew what to say. We had not been racing anyone. We had simply been walking at our own pace, as best we could, through the rain.  To be honest, the entire trail seemed to be a constant process of leapfrogging and being passed by other hikers that we had no memory of this precise individual.

 

His anger landed badly because it came at a point when our own patience was already thin. After he pushed roughly past me to continue onward, the incident added one more spark to a day already soaked in weather and fatigue.  Sean almost leapt at him, given that he laughed at shoving me to the ground.   The result was not a fight, but a rare moment for us as hiking partners, Sean and I ended up arguing with one another as the other hiker marched off, rambling aloud about “putting a pair of rude Yanks in their place”.  There was little point in trying to point out that we were Canadian.

 

Bridge of Orchy

 

Hoping to calm down and figure out how to proceed, we stopped trekking and found a seat outside the whitewashed Bridge of Orchy Hotel. We took a tea break, not because we were relaxed, but because we needed to stop and reorient before continuing. For a few minutes, we even considered getting a room here, but the last one available was £200 for the night. Across the bridge, the official wild camping area was already packed with eight tents set up side by side in the pouring rain, which did not feel like the right place to recover from either the weather or the mood of the morning.

 

The clear issue was that I was not sure whether either of us was enjoying the experience anymore. Hiking in the pouring rain is one thing. Hiking in the pouring rain while repeatedly being pushed aside, told off, or treated as though our presence was somehow an inconvenience to others was something else. The West Highland Way was still beautiful, still manageable, still worth walking, but today, we were meeting it from a place of exhaustion rather than wonder.

 

Pushing on

 

With our attitudes only slightly improved, but feeling at least somewhat refreshed by the break, we decided to hike on. Our guidebooks indicated that there might be another possibility for lodging several kilometres ahead, and we figured we could check there if we were completely spent in the next hour or so. For the moment, that was enough of a plan.  In truth, it was the only plan if our intended stage was breaking apart.

 

Crossing a beautiful stone-arched bridge, we began climbing into the second half of our day. The trail followed a rocky dirt track, and the skies began to darken again over the exposed landscape. Soon, the route wove through a quiet stand of small conifers, offering a brief sense of shelter before it emerged once more into open country and remarkable landscape.

 

From there, the West Highland Way followed an exposed ridge, bringing another round of howling winds. Below us lay a lake and a marshy region that the guidebook noted was prone to flooding, a detail that felt especially relevant given the amount of rain already falling. Ahead of us, a long line of hikers slinked onward across the rolling landscape, covered in various colours of rain covers and jackets through the grey.

 

We too largely kept our heads down and pushed on as the route descended toward the side of the lake and a collection of white buildings. The walking itself was manageable, but the conditions and the emotional strain of the morning made everything feel glum.

 

Soon, the trail joined and followed alongside a local roadway. Descending toward it, we eventually came to the Inveroran Hotel on the edge of Loch Tulla. It appeared almost like a promise in the rain: stone walls, shelter, toilets, perhaps something warm to drink, and possibly even the chance to reassess how much farther we truly wanted to go.

 

Tourist Prices

 

The Inveroran Hotel has been in operation since 1708 and has welcomed travellers for centuries, including, according to local history, members of the Wordsworth family. Arriving there wet, tired, and uncertain, we were less focused on literary associations than on the immediate hope of a toilet break, the opportunity for a brief rest, and perhaps – if we were very lucky - something to drink. We set our backpacks down outside, and as Sean sat down, he pleaded for me to ask whether they had any rooms available for the evening.

I went inside first to use the lavatory, planning to ask about accommodation afterward. While I was in the stall, I heard another patron in the bar ask the same question. His response to the price was immediate and disbelieving: “What?! You’re shitting me. Does anything come with that?” To which the woman at the bar replied, very calmly, “You get a room, sir.”

 

Having completed my business and washed my hands, I entered the bar to get two cups of tea and asked whether they had any rooms for the night. The answer, which I had not heard clearly from the washroom, was that yes, they did. They were £450 for one night. At the time of our hike, £450 sterling was roughly $795 Canadian, which seemed extraordinary for one night in a small hotel in the midst of a flood-prone landscape.

 

I stammered out a polite and disbelieving no thank you, unsure what else to say. Who could reasonably pay that much for a single night of accommodation? Yet as I stood there trying to absorb the situation, a full tour bus pulled up and people with mountains of luggage began to enter the hotel. Apparently, plenty of people could and did pay that amount. The world never fails to amaze me.

 

Just as I came to that conclusion, two soaked Americans walked in, asked the same question about a room, and without hesitation slapped their credit card on the counter and demanded to be let in. For our part, we were simply grateful for the chance to sit inside, dry off a little, and enjoy a couple of muffins, a cup of warm and fortifying tea, along with a glass of orange juice before continuing into the weather.

 

Drover’s Tracks

 

Continuing on, the West Highland Way followed the roadway for a time. As we walked, we passed a small wild camping area, which was already busy with five tents set up. We were tempted and tired, but decided against stopping.

 

The route soon took us past a forest lodge off the roadway and up into gently rolling hills along the edge of conifer plantations and fence lines. Here, we joined one of Thomas Telford’s old Parliamentary Roads, a drover’s road built to move people, livestock, goods, and authority across difficult terrain. These routes were part of a much older network through the Highlands, used by drovers taking cattle south to market and later formalized through military and parliamentary road-building.

 

Given how open the landscape was here and the direct nature of these roads, it was relatively easy to see far ahead.  That visibility, however, did not necessarily make the distance feel shorter. If anything, in the driving wind and rain, it sometimes made the way ahead feel endless.

 

The weather throughout the afternoon had enormous energy. Thunder rolled, lightning flashed, and powerful rain swept across the open landscape. It poured, then the sun came out. It poured again, then the sun returned. We would become soaked in a downpour, then trek onward through a burst of baking sun, only for the rain to begin again just as we thought we might be drying out. Twice, hail struck us between periods of heat and sunshine. Guidebooks often warn that in Scotland, you can experience all four seasons in a single day, and on this stretch, that was exactly what happened.

 

I think we could have done without the experience.  With that said, we definitely appreciated the bursts of sun whenever they came. On Wainwright’s Coast to Coast, after several days of constant rain and cold wind, we had often wished for even a brief window of warmth to dry ourselves out. Here, the weather offered those moments, but never for long. Even when the sun shone, dark clouds raced across the sky, always threatening the next deluge.

 

Around us and the trail, there was little coverage to soften the weather’s extremes.  Periodic stands of trees gave brief variation, and we crossed stone bridges, a rocky gorge, and swollen streams rushing below, but most of the day was about moving on.  Thankfully, the surface of the trail remained firm to let us progress steadily.

 

The wide drover’s track accommodated not only walkers but also a number of ATVs, which at one point used the route to race across the moor. Eventually, we traversed Ba Bridge over the River Ba, leading us onward toward the ruins of Ba Cottage.

 

Rannoch Moor

 

Despite the challenges of the day, and perhaps in part because of the variable weather, the views across Rannoch Moor were incredible. The guidebook described this stage as having “true Highland scenery - wild, desolate, and waterlogged,” which felt apt, though I would add that it was also undeniably beautiful. There was a grandeur to the openness of the place, and the shifting weather only seemed to heighten it. Sun and shadow moved across the moor in quick succession. 

Clouds lowered and lifted. Rain swept through, then gave way to brightness, only for the next front to gather again. The result was a landscape that felt alive, vibrant, and constantly changing. Needless to say we found ourselves stopping to take photographs whenever we could

 

Throughout the afternoon, we spotted Grey Wagtails, thrushes, and even a few kites soaring overhead. Those sightings were small welcome reminders that, even in a day defined so heavily by weather, there were still moments when the life of the moor broke through.

 

Eventually, the trail levelled out, and what remained of the stage became a long, sodden trek across an open muddy field.

 

Today had started as a stage we undertook, uncertain of our destination, and one during which had been tempted to stop several times. In the end, it had turned into a 31-kilometre day in more than 60 mm of rain, across a stunning landscape.

 

Glencoe Ski Resort

 

Soon we found signs indicating that we would need to go a short distance off-trail to reach Glencoe Mountain Resort, which offered summer camping in a grassy corner of its parking lot. My original thought had been to push on to the nearby Kingshouse Hotel, but with only a small number of campsites listed there and more than sixty people hiking around us (that I counted en route), we decided not to gamble.

Following a weather-beaten sign, we left the West Highland Way and made our way toward the ski resort, only a few hundred metres off the trail. Through the shifting cloud and rain, we eventually made out the chairlift rising up the hillside toward Glencoe Mountain. Even that summit, however, soon disappeared into the clouds, as though the landscape was still being swallowed and revealed in pieces.

We trekked across a large parking lot and checked in, then were told where we could camp. Before long, we had pitched our tent at the front of the lot, not far from a helicopter landing pad. After the long, wet day, the setting was not exactly romantic, but it was practical, available, and more than enough for two tired hikers. Sometimes at the end of a difficult stage, those are the things that matter most.

We set our tent up against a group of trees, where it seemed sheltered from the wind and rain as well as being out of the way. As we worked, one gentleman came over and warned us that we should move closer to the other tents because we were liable to get attacked by wild animals in our tent if we camped that close to trees.

We thanked him and continued setting up, once again amazed by the different perspectives on wilderness and wildlife in the UK. After years of camping in Canada, including in regions where bears, wolves, coyotes, moose, raccoons, porcupines, and other animals were very real considerations, the idea that a small stand of trees beside a ski resort parking lot presented a serious wildlife risk felt somewhat hard to absorb. Still, it was offered as genuine advice, and by then we were too tired to do anything but smile, finish pitching the tent, and be grateful that the day was almost over.

 

Dinner and Drinks

 

Once the tent was set up, we returned to the chalet hoping to warm up, rest for a while, and eat something substantial after the long, wet day. The glass ski lodge at Glencoe Mountain Resort should have felt like a welcome refuge, and in some ways it was. It was indoors, dry, and out of the wind. After thirty-one kilometres in rain, hail, thunder, and chilling winds, those things mattered.

 

The young staff, however, were not especially welcoming, and the prices were steep. Two hamburgers cost £50, which felt like another reminder that we were trekking through a region where walkers, tourists, tour buses, hotels, and seasonal resort infrastructure all overlapped in complicated and very costly ways. Still, we were grateful that the food was not deep-fried, and after the day we had just had, a hot meal and a couple of beers were welcome. 

 

The bartender was kinder than the servers and offered a bit of local perspective along with our drinks. He told us that three days earlier it had been +18°C there, while tonight it was expected to drop to -2°C with snow up the hill. “It’s how it is in this region, welcome to Scotland and all that,” he said, before adding, “But then again, you are from Canada. You are used to -40 all the time.” It was another reminder of how differently people measure weather and endurance depending on where they come from and what they consider normal.

 

A couple of hours later, however, we were stunned by the way closing time unfolded. Staff continued serving people until moments before the lodge was to close for the evening.  Yet this did not stop one older staff member from running around shouting at everyone to leave immediately. Thankfully, we had already eaten, but one family who had arrived late and paid a small fortune for food for six people had only just had their meals dropped at the table when the staff member scooped up the uneaten food and threw it away in front of them.  When people objected, he simply shrugged and hurried off to do the same to others who had also just received meals and drinks.

 

For us, these events did little to affect the evening, but for those who had just arrived wet, tired, hungry, and out of options, it was a remarkably harsh way to end the day. After everything we had seen along the trail, it felt like another example of how exhausting travel can become when the landscape is difficult and the human systems around it offer little reprieve.

 

Eventually, we left the lodge and returned to our tent in the parking lot, grateful that at least we had eaten before our food could be taken away. It had been a day of tough weather, vast scenery, strange encounters, and growing exhaustion.   By evening, we were no longer looking for comfort in any grand sense - we were simply grateful to be fed, sheltered, and done walking for the day.

 

Evening Reflections

 

We were exhausted from a day spent largely in the rain. In some ways, the trekking itself had been relatively easy: firm trails and long stretches where it was easy to make steady progress.  But the weather had been difficult, and some of the subsequent aspects of being on the trail had been harder still.

 

By this point, it was clear that the conditions were wearing on many people. There was a lot of rudeness on the trail, and more than once we watched hikers push through the middle of groups, block narrow sections of path, or direct their frustration outward at whoever happened to be nearby. We too had been told off for going too slowly, for going too quickly, and even for “showing off” by carrying large backpacks. It was odd, as though the frustrations people felt with the weather, the world, or even themselves were being directed onto others.

 

Perhaps that is one of the subtle truths of long-distance walking. The trail not only reveals landscapes. It reveals people under pressure. Sometimes that pressure brings out kindness, humour, generosity, and resilience. Other times it exposes impatience, insecurity, entitlement, and anger. On this day, we saw a bit too much of the latter.

 

Tonight, we were grateful to have completed another stage. We were grateful to have the gear to stay warm and dry, grateful that our tent was strong and pitched before the weather worsened again, and grateful that we had arrived early enough to eat before our food could be taken away. Those may not sound like grand victories, but on a day like this, these things felt essential.

 

There are nights when you go to bed content, full of gratitude for beauty, achievement, and the simple satisfaction of having walked through a remarkable place. Then there are nights when you simply fall asleep counting your blessings. This was one of those nights.

 

See you on the trail!