Hill Walking Excursion

The definition of "hill walking" according to Wikipedia - "In the British Isles, the terms hillwalking or fellwalking are commonly use to describe the recreational outdoor activity of walking on hills and mountains, often with the intention of visiting their summits." Now compare this to the definition of "hiking" - an outdoor activity which consists of walking in natural environments, often on hiking trails." Please note the word trails. Perhaps I should have done a little more research before signing myself up for a weekend trip to Kinlochleven with the University of Edinburgh Hill Walking Club. But then again if I had known exactly what I was getting myself into, I might not have gone and I would have missed out on an awesome experience.

So as you have probably guessed I participated in one of the hill walking club's trips this past weekend. They go on roughly eight a semester, mostly in the Highlands and sometimes out to the Inner Hebrides. We left Friday afternoon and drove about three hours north to Kinlochleven, a small town nestled right in between the Glen Coe Mountains (to the south) and the Mamores ridge (to the north). So obviously this makes for some great hiking since ten of the mountain ranges in the Mamores are classified as 'Monros.' Now that I have officially come to understand this Scottish hill walking terminology, allow me to explain what that weird sounding word means.

In Scotland, a mountain is called a "bheinn" which comes from the Gaelic word for mountain. However, as I learned, the word has been further anglicanized with many people just spelling it 'ben' now. These bens are then classified either as Marilyns (at least 492 feet), Corbetts (1,000-3,000 feet) and Monros (over 3,000 feet). There are 284 Monros in Scotland, so naturally there are people crazy enough to want to climb all of them during their lifetime. These hard core hill walkers are known as "Monro baggers" and from what I could tell this weekend, they mean business! One group on our trip "bagged" ten Monros in two days. If my legs are hurting after just a measly three Monros and one Corbett, I can only imagine how sore their legs are right now.

So we arrived at the youth hostel we had rented out for our group of 50 people around 9:00 on Friday night and it was time to sign up for walks. I was really impressed with how organized the club was. The president announced that it was time for the guides to map out their walks and then gave them about thirty minutes to do so before each person had to stand up and describe their route to the group. Then it was a mad frenzy as everyone bombarded the person in charge of the walk they wanted the most. Now I have done a good amount of hiking back home, and I was feeling like I might as well get my money's worth for this weekend and really push myself. So I decided to sign up for one of the medium to hard walks led by a guide named Thomas who has been a member of the club for many years. He had the best accent ever and seemed like a really funny and interesting guy, so I also had a feeling it would be a great experience to hike with him all day. I came to find out he is from Poland originally and also lived in Germany and Cambridge before moving to Edinburgh, where he is a lecturer in neurophysiology at the University. So overall, a very interesting person to lead us on our trek up and down the hills of Scotland.

Well there is one thing I should probably mention. Everyone is of course familiar with those pesky airline weight requirements. So pretty much when I was packing, it came down to choosing between my heavy duty hiking boots or my good winter jackets. Although I have been pretty confident in that decision up until now (I quite enjoy the comfort of sufficiently warm clothing after all) I thought about my nice waterproof, ankle support, heavy duty boots sitting back at home in my closet for the majority of the trip. Especially when I got up on Saturday morning, raring to go hill walking, only to have one of the guides almost hold me back thanks to my footwear. As I was hopping onto the bus, he asked "Katie, you are going to change into your hiking boots when we get there, yes?" I just gave him a sheepish look and explained that those were my hiking boots. He only let me go after I practically begged him and promised I would be SUPER careful. I probably should have realized at that point exactly what I was getting myself into.

So we drove about 45 minutes north and started our walk around 9:45. For the first two hours or so we were walking through this beautiful valley with waterfalls cascading down into the river. About thirty minutes in all traces of a footpath disappeared and we began slogging our way through tall marsh grass and boggy moss, which was rather enjoyable in my non-waterproof hiking shoes. (Although I did quite enjoy the nice squelching sound emanating from my shoes from that point on). Now for some reason, I just figured we would pick the path back up after we crossed the river. Or maybe after we hiked straight up and over this first ridge covered in similarly tall, impassable grass and wet, mushy, muddy areas. Or maybe after that really steep, rocky ascent part? Turns out, there were no more paths after that... Thomas proceeded to inform me that hill walking in Scotland resembles the traditional notion of hiking in America pretty much only in the sense that you are out walking around in nature.

Now he imparted this little tidbit of knowledge as we were perched on top of our first Monro of the day. I won't lie - as I sat there with one fingernail partly ripped off, a mixture of dirt and sheep poop coating my palms, and legs that felt like spaghetti noodles, I kind of wondered for a moment if I had gotten in over my head. But honestly, at that point there was no alternative and I certainly did not want to come back down the way we had come up!! Now, that was the only part of the day where I was a little bit nervous, mainly because we did 600 meters of ascent on that first Monro and it was the steepest grade we encountered all day. Once I wrapped my mind around the concept of hill walking, I had the most amazing day and I am glad that I pushed myself (albeit it completely unknowingly) into a pretty challenging walk.

Our three Monros for the day were Binnean Beck (Little Mountain in Gaelic), Binnean Mor (big mountain), and Na Gruagaichean (no earthly idea what that one means... big, tall mountain with tons of jagged rocks??) The first one was the hardest mainly because we made most of our ascent at that point - after that we only had to ascend 400 meters to the top of Binnean Mor and then just 200 to the top of Na Gruagaichean from there since we walked along a ridge which connected the two. Here are some of the photos I took throughout the day.

Just before ascending our first Monro of the day

Alex and I standing proudly in front of Binnean Beck!

View from the top of Binnean Mor

The ridge that led us from Binnean Mor to Na Gruagaichean

I simply had to take a picture in my foul weather gear that I borrowed from the hill walking club. Thankfully we had beautiful weather all weekend and I had no need for it though! It was a good thing I didn't have to wear it for extended periods of time since it smelled suspiciously like it hadn't been washed since the Hill Walking Club was founded 25 years ago...

Sunset as we were making our final descent

We got to walk the last hour and a half or so with our head lamps, which we got really excited about!

Once our group made it back to the hostel, we carbo-loaded and gorged ourselves on a delicious pasta dinner. I just thought the menu was going to consist of pasta and cheap sauce from a jar, given that they were cooking for 50 hungry hill walkers. But boy was I wrong!! We had fusilli with homemade meatballs and a sauce made from scratch filled with just about every vegetable you can buy in the grocery store. And then brownies for dessert (also made from scratch, of course). Then we repeated the same routine from the night before and everyone signed up for another walk. After walking 20 kilometers in one day and such a feast I had no problem at all falling asleep that night.

Since I was fairly confident that I my legs were going to feel like those of an 80 year old woman the next morning, I decided to sign up for an "easy" walk. But let's not forget that that is easy by hill walking standards. It was a great day though and I really enjoyed our group as well as our guide, Rob. Here are some pictures from Sunday:

We got to take the ferry across Loch Leven to get to the start of our walk!! (That may or may not have been a major contributing factor in my decision to sign up for that particular walk...)

It was SO WINDY at this one spot near the top of the Corbett! Our guide Rob said it was probably 50 miles per hour or so.

A nice view just before we reached the top

Now, as I mentioned, this walk was supposed to be "easy." Well... even if we had kept to our original route I still think it would have been pretty challenging. We spent the first three hours or so on our ascent to the top (about 2,900 feet, so it was just short of a Monro). The really, really windy picture was actually taken right in front of where we were supposed to go down this little ravine... which obviously was not going to work. This called for a change of plans, so instead we navigated our way down the other side of the Corbett in hopes of finding a way down over there. It was neat because I volunteered to be the "second" for our group, which basically meant I got to carry a map and was supposed to tell our guide if I "thought he was doing something really stupid," as he put it. So I got a chance to learn more about reading the topography maps, while also learning a lot about how misleading those maps can be. We ended up tacking an additional three hours onto our walk since it took us a long time to find a gentle enough place to descend back into the valley that led back to the car park. But that part of the walk actually ended up being my favorite, since we got to go scrambling down rocks right next to a waterfall. But we arrived back at the bus around 5:30, exhausted, quite muddy, and very ready for three hours of sitting.

So overall, it was a great weekend with the Hill Walking Club and I do not regret my decision to go at all. It is funny that I am transitioning from that sort of trip to my next adventure... Paris with Patrick! I fly out of Edinburgh early on Wednesday morning and we are meeting up there and spending four days exploring the city. So the next time I blog I will have many more adventures to recount from that trip I am sure!

Also, one more excursion to tack onto this blog. Last Thursday night I went to see Don Giovanni at Usher Theatre with Jenny and Andrew, two other students studying abroad here from Davidson. We all took the two year Humanities course together and we studied Don Giovanni this past semester, so we figured it was absolutely necessary for us to experience the opera here in Edinburgh. Here are a couple of photos from that as well!