Walking Home

reveries of an amateur long-distance hiker

Monthly Archives: June 2022

Walking to Cape Wrath, Day 23, June 2, 2022

June 5th, 2022

Walking to Cape Wrath, Day 23, June 2, 2022

SORRY— this one is out of order, too many days out in the glens

A day of two passes, divided by some time in a pub. It rained a bit in the night, just enough to give each blade of grass a crown. As I wanted to time today’s trek to get lunch at Cluanie Inn, I lingered in the tent, watching the morning sun—itself a surprise—gently lift the water from the fabric, getting a late start. The walk out was along a squtichy boggy path first up the Glen then up and over a pass in the gap between Creag Liathtais and Creag a’Mhaim (I missed that turn, adding 20 minutes to my day). The landscape remains magical, particularly in the bright morning light. Soon I was up and over, slowly descending to a well built road which historically was part of the “Road to the Isles,” which is now defunct because of hydro-electric projects. It made for a quick final 5km to the Cluanie Inn. There the proprietor let me hang out in the pub charging my devices (something I’ve become obsessed with given the frequency of encounters with civilization). Soon they opened for lunch, and I gorged myself, then lingered out front in the sun sipping yet another pint delaying my afternoon which was, in many ways, the mirror image of my morning.

On leaving the Inn I found the track into the An Caorann Mòr, a long gentle climb on a land rover road which, on giving out became in indistinct path even boggier than the morning. After several hours of slogging about I finally sighted the Affric river beyond which I could see the hostel, my end point. I gratefully forded the river in the last 1/2 km, happy to wash away the day’s accumulated muck before settling in. The Glen Affric Hostel (run by the Scottish Hostel group) is an isolated off-the-grid establishment frequented by mountain bikers and Munro baggers. Initially there was a mixup with my reservation, but it was soon resolved, and I spent a toasty evening by the fire (while it rained outside) talking with a whole crew of hard-core outdoors aficionados.

T. Hugh Crawford

Walking to Cape Wrath, Day 25, June 4, 2022

June 5th, 2022

Walking to Cape Wrath, Day 25, June 4, 2022

I stopped briefly at a bothy this afternoon and had a conversation with Simon, a man walking part of the Cape Wrath Trail. He had settled in for the day while I was planning to push ahead to the next bothy about 8 km further on. A hot day tempted me to stay, but I want to get used to much longer days as the last week will be full of them. We talked about stopping in towns, and he took the familiar line used by most trekkers— a certain contempt for “civilization” as trekking takes you out in the wild and keeps you there.

That narrative thread is strong in most of the Cape Wrath Trail discourse— its draw is the wild. Of course I’m all for the wild— I relish the solitude of wandering in what seem to be empty spaces (one of the reasons I almost always trek alone see https://walkinghome.lmc.gatech.edu/pointless-essays/solitude/). And, for example, today I saw almost no one except Simon over a 30 km walk which took me via very steep and narrow paths down the side of one of the tallest waterfall in UK, Falls of Glomach measuring in at 113 meters. I walked around lochs, slogged through more bogs, and crossed several high ridges. In other words, I got the full wild experience.

But I also want to say a word for towns. I’ve had to coordinate maps, websites and guidebooks to see just how close the SNT comes to various towns— many it deliberately misses— in order to have the chance to visit them. For me, towns (crossroads, villages, hamlets— the maps have the full gamut of place names) can be every bit as interesting as an isolated mountaintop.

The Appalachian trail only passes directly through a few towns along its 2000 mile + corridor. Resupply usually involves hitchhiking down off the ridge to towns at some distance. Towards the end of my trek, I realized how much I enjoyed staying in decrepit motels near the trail. Mattresses lumpy, television often limited, the rooms had no real appeal except there was always an old lawn chair on the walk in front of the room, facing the parking lot, where in the evening you could sit, read, and talk to the people arriving. Hardly “exciting” but a real pleasure nevertheless. Since then I’ve hiked many trails, most with a similarly fraught relationship to towns. Of course there are exceptions— the Camino de Santiago winds its way through the main street of every town it approaches (primarily to afford pilgrims the chance to pray in each of the churches on the way). But by and large on most long trails, towns are viewed as infrastructure— a place to support the wilderness seekers— and not as another sight to be seen. Just a word for towns— they can bring such pleasure.

Today no town for me. I’m sleeping in the Bendronaig Lodge bothy— a comfortable estate bothy with a flushing toilet! (Of course you have to bring buckets of water from the spring). And tomorrow I will wild camp somewhere past Craig, a crossroads I should pass mid day.  But the following day brings the village of Kinlochewe, and another place to explore—a town.

T. Hugh Crawford

Walking to Cape Wrath, Day 24, June 3, 2022

June 3rd, 2022

Walking to Cape Wrath, Day 24, June 3, 2022

Quite possibly the most beautiful walk I’ve ever taken. Woke early as the Munro baggers were itching to get started and my bunk was just above theirs—had coffee with them later, a good lot. I was the only one walking out what for many is the last leg of the Glen Affric Way. I was expecting more bog hiking, but after a few kilometers was surprised by a well-benched track that held through the day, and what a day. I began walking up the watershed of the Allt Beithe Garbh, but so subtly, the flow changed to the west and I spent the rest of the morning descending with the Allt Grannda.

The wind had picked up in the night, coming in with the rain, so the early morning was brisk, cloudy, and damp, but it was clear the skies were going to clear, so I bopped along at a rolling pace. After a few clicks I passed a simple bothy and had a short but pleasant conversation with a couple who were finishing the Glen Affric Way that day. They were lingering over morning coffee before heading out.

Later in the day I encountered mountain bikers heading up the glen, and, closer to Morvich, the walkers were out in force. One part of the path crossed a cattle pasture with some highland cattle (or some hybrids I suspect) which included a glowering bull and many calves. I passed warily, but he seemed unconcerned, as he would be, given the place he gets to live. Later the path joined a land rover track that quickly brought me to the Morvich Campgounds, a short day earned by going long the previous two. Shower, laundry and a long walk to the Kintail Lodge for a huge meal and obligatory pints.

It must have been the combination of a well formed path, the beginnings of sunshine, the narrowness of the glen, the height of the mountains, and the non-stop waterfalls—each more impressive than the last— that turned the day exquisite. It is difficult to mark a tipping point, that move from a painful, difficult walk, to a tiresome trudge, to a lighthearted amble, to something that is close to pure joy—but that line was crossed today.

T. Hugh Crawford

Walking to Cape Wrath, Day 22, June 1, 2022

June 2nd, 2022

Walking to Cape Wrath, Day 22, June 1, 2022


A short distance from where I was yesterday lies Rannoch, or as the poet once designated it, “Rannoch, by Glencoe.” I try to imagine T.S. Eliot walking these hills. An American from St. Louis, desperate to be an Englishman, travels to Scotland, and surprisingly, in the first stanza evokes something of the mood that accompanies a long day’s walk on the moors:

Here the crow starves, here the patient stag

Breeds for the rifle. Between the soft moor

And the soft sky, scarcely room

To leap or soar. Substance crumbles, in the thin air

In a few lines he captures ecological, almost geological, history. The great Caledonian Forest (tonight I am sleeping next to a faint remnant of that wood—dead giant trees standing silver on the hillside) was decimated by many factors, not the least was the transformation of this land into hunting preserves— a sordid history, but here to this day, the “patient stag/ Breeds for the rifle.” I passed many on my descent into Glen Loyne.

But what Eliot does even better is capture the sublimity of these moors. Of course the sublime is an aesthetic category, one all too often invoked by nature writers, but here I’m generalizing (perhaps unfairly) the phenomenon in chemistry. Sublimation describes the change of state of matter directly from solid to gas. To me, it also describes any of those phase changes crossings— the moment of state change. The moors are sublime because they waver, almost tremble, between states. Is that spot where you are about to step solid or liquid? It usually turns out to be a little of both. Eliot’s repetition of the word “soft” here is key— softness is either tactile and can only be known by direct touching, or it is visual, indicating a lack of sharpness, clarity, focus. On these moors, “Substance crumbles, in the thin air.”  Tonight I sleep in my tent by the Loyne River, in an isolated, almost magical glen that bears no marks— all is a green softness.

T. Hugh Crawford