9 miles_23000 steps

We finally saw one of the big 5. Liz got a bit friendly with it.

Ok so did I…..

After another wonderful breakfast we headed off to Kinlochleven on a trail promising spectacular views. It didn’t start out that way…..here is what we were supposed to see at the start and what we saw.

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A couple miles down the road and across from Buachaille we had a small mountain to climb ourselves with the name of the devil’s staircase. The pictures don’t do it justice of the ascent and the amount of serpentine turns we had to take to get to the top. With every turn the mountain behind us became more visible – sort of.

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Well as we know what goes up must come down. The next 5 miles was walking through a combination of Machu Picchu/Andes and Pyrenees with a little bit of Jurassic Park thrown in. We did not have rain for most of it – but there was a lot of fog so we did not see as much as we could, but what we did was spectacular.

We ended up with the last 2 miles in the rain coming into a darling little town, I believe, known for aluminum smelting. Unfortunately, the aluminum museum was closed- Liz was disappointed.

We called it an early night (it is 9pm as I write this and turning in) to get ready for our 15 mile birthday last day hike. See you in Fort William.