West Highland Way: Day 9

Date: Easter Monday, 9 April

Route: Kings House to Kinlochleven

Distance: 9 miles

Accommodation: Highland Getaway, Kinlochleven

With heavy rain forecast and “The Devil’s Staircase”, the steepest climb on the whole walk, ahead of us, there was some trepidation as we set off along the West Highland Way, leaving behind the slightly worn-at-the-edges but character-filled and superbly located Kings House Hotel with its Climbers’ Bar and friendly staff. If you get the chance, check out the photo of the cigar-chomping craggy mountaineer on top of one of the lofty peaks in the bar – it’s a classic.

Luckily, even though we experienced both rain and snow on the 9½ mile walk, this section boasts some of the most spectacular scenery of the whole walk, which more than compensated for the grey skies. The walk begins alongside the hotel, following a track through the valley, with towering mountains ahead and on either side. Every now and again, breaks in the cloud revealed the snowy mountain-tops, before they melted back into the mist.

After a section alongside the A82, the path became a little more difficult, partly because of the volume of water running down the hill from the previous night’s rainfall, but mainly due to the steep climb up to the hilltop. The name for this section is “The Devil’s Staircase”, which makes it sound immeasurably worse than it is – there are definitely a few heart-pounding moments but the final ascent is pretty gradual and once you are at the top there are stunning views in all directions (cloud permitting).

The rest of the walk is pretty much downhill all the way, again with beautiful views out over the imposing mountains, with a loch visible over to the right, before the path joins up with the track leading down from the aluminium works and heads into the village of Kinlochleven, continuing along the river.

Kinlochleven has a Co-op, a few pubs, a climbing wall and the Aluminium Story Visitor Centre, so it feels like a teeming metropolis after the remote locations of the past two nights.

 
This was a challenging but massively rewarding section of the path, which I would be keen to walk again on a clear day.