This is Day 5 in a series of blog posts chronicling my adventure walking the West Highland Way, a 96-mile path in Scotland. I did this in July 2025 with my hiking partner Shawn. Here are the first 4 days if you have some time on your hands.
Day 1, Milngavie to Drymen
Day 2: Drymen to Rowardennan
A good day on the West Highland Way: Day 3 (Rowardennan to Ardlui)
A generally (but not all) bad day on the West Highland way (Ardlui to Tyndrum)
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If you haven’t been following along on my rambling, wordy chronicle of this West Highland Way (WHW for short) journey, here’s a little recap. The West Highland Way is a 96-mile path through, shockingly, the highlands of Scotland.
By the numbers, through Day 4, Shawn and I had reached mile 53 (give or take). We were past where he’d had to bail due to injury a couple decades earlier. We’d done 12 miles on Day 1, 15 on Day 2, 12 on Day 3, and 14 on Day 4. Well, Shawn had. I had reduced my miles on Day 4 down to about 7, thanks to a persistent cough/cold that had sapped my energy. With a little assist from public transport for me, we’d landed in the cute little town of Tyndrum.
Day 5, for Shawn, was going to be the longest day of the walk. 19 miles total. Not super hard miles, but still, 19 miles is a long way. His day would take him across the famed Ranooch Moor, which can be sucky in bad weather, but he lucked out with a dry, albeit warm, day.
I had committed to an easier day, to give my body (and mind) a break.
So, Shawn left early. I took care of the bags, then made my way to the bus stop. My plan was to take the bus to Bridge of Orchy, hike a hill on the WHW from there, then hike back down, timing it to cross paths with Shawn as he was heading up.
To my delight, I encountered our Canadian friends at the Tyndrum bus stop. They, too, had decided that 19 miles was a bit much, and planned to cut off 6 miles from their trek by taking a bus, like me, to Bridge of Orchy. I was so tickled to see them. It felt like a little blessing on my plan to shorten my day.
On the bus, I gazed idly out the window until I realized that the path I was seeing alongside the road was probably the WHW. I said to the Canadians: “Wouldn’t it be funny if we passed Shawn?” Sure enough, not a moment later, I saw a lone figure in dark clothes on the trail, pausing as if taking a picture, and I laughed out loud, certain it was him. I texted him, and he replied that it was lonely on the trail that morning. I consoled myself at the little twinge of guilt with the knowledge that I wouldn’t have been able to keep up with him on those fast flat trails anyway.
Random note from the bus ride: I discovered I was missing a cord to charge my phone. This will become relevant later.
At the Bridge of Orchy, I set out to climb Mam Carraigh (pronunciation unknown), an easy little hill that led to 360 degree views. It was a very pretty morning, with moveable clouds and intermittent sunshine. And best of all, I had my Canon camera out.
As I mentioned in Day 4’s post, I’d not had time or energy to take out my “real” camera up until this moment. But now I did, and I indulged in stopping at a beautiful trumpet-like flower, to remind myself how to use my Canon after a long hiatus. Here’s the result:
Ahhh. I can still feel the sense of peace that ran through me as I snapped away.
Then it was up the gentle hill to the summit, where the views were expansive and lovely.
I thought of waiting for Shawn at the top, but there were midges, little tiny evil bugs that tried to eat me when I sat, so I turned back.
Now came the feverish internal math calculations, as I tried to guess if I’d timed things correctly to see Shawn along the way.
And wouldn’t you know it, about halfway down, he appeared, heading up. Trail math victory! It was kind of awesome. The path back to the pretty hamlet of Bridge of Orchy was smooth sailing from then on.
At the bottom of the hill, I realized I’d booked my next bus an hour later than I’d planned, and the bus driver wouldn’t let me transfer. So I headed into the Bridge of Orchy Hotel and had a spot of tea with sugar cubes and cream, which was tasty and oh-so-civilized. I also bought what I thought was the solution to my phone cord problem, but it turned out to be a dud.
When I finally did board the bus, my plan was to go to the Glencoe Visitors Center, thinking that I could probably find a cord there, and also use it as a base for some hiking. But then two things happened. One, I missed the stop because you had to actually ask the driver for a stop, which I didn’t know, and two, I realized that the places I wanted to see weren’t reachable via the bus. So, I made my way to Glencoe Village (the bus ride in this part of the country was incredible, by the way), where I found a cord at a gas station and wandered a bit, thinking of lunch.
However, a check in with Shawn made me realize he was far closer to the end than I’d thought, moving at a blistering pace, and so I left Glencoe, deciding I’d need to come back someday, and headed to the bus stop that intersected with the WHW, near Glencoe Ski Resort and the Kingshouse Hotel, our stop for the night.
I hopped off the bus and headed south on the WHW, determined to meet Shawn and walk him back to the hotel. In yet another charmed moment, the Canadians appeared. They too had crushed their miles from Bridge of Orchy.
My path took me on a gentle but steady uphill via some kind of military road, rocky and dusty. It was hot and sunny, and I felt strong as I strode along. I ran into several people I’d seen at other moments along the WHW and they all looked a little confused that I was going the wrong way. :)
The trail was deceptive in that I kept thinking I would reach the top of the hill around the next bend, and I found that I really wanted to be at the top before I met Shawn, so I could see the view out over the moor. So I tried to pick up the pace. And in yet another sign that my “easier” day plan was indeed the right one, I managed to make it to the top…just in time to see Shawn coming up the hill with a truly epic landscape behind him.
It’s a testament to how tired he was that he didn’t even wave at me for pictures. But he was still moving fast, so fast that even I, on relatively fresh legs, could barely keep up on the way back. I think it was the prospect of a cold drink and a comfy couch that fueled him.
On the way down, the views toward Glencoe were pretty spectacular.
All told, we did between 2 and 3 miles together to get to the hotel, a big impressive building “in the middle of nowhere” as our waiter would say later that evening.
Oh, and speaking of waiters, we had the best meal of the trip that night at the hotel restaurant. I won’t bore you with the details (other than to gush that there was fondue, cider and two desserts) but I’ll post the pictures because it was really, really yummy, and the setting was so pretty.
Unfortunately the lovely room we had that night was excruciatingly hot with just a tiny fan to try to stir the air. We didn’t realize we could have deployed a midge net and opened the windows (tip if you ever stay there).
I don’t know for sure, but I think Shawn slept well that night. He deserved to, after his speedy and impressive 19 mile day. After the solid, enjoyable 9-mile day I’d had, I was starting to feel lousy again, so it was a pretty bad night of sleep, for me at least. But I’d given myself enough of a break that 9 miles to Kinlochleven the next day seemed entirely doable. I was ready to finish strong for the last two days.