Tag Archives: hiking

photography, San Miguel de Allende, Scotland - West Highland Way, Writings

Hiking the West Highland Way: Day 8, into the land of the gods via lochs, munros and moors

Scotland’s most photographable structure: Black Rock Cottage (now known as The Ladies’ Scottish Climbing Club). Behind it rises the formidable-looking Bauchaille Etive Mor (“Great Herdsman of Etive”).

In Scotland, there are beinns and munros (hills and mountains). Hills are most anything below 3,000 feet and that is what we’ve been mostly skirting on the West Highland Way. They are impressive as you walk trails carved into their lower regions. They form majestic, sloping walls on either side of gentle glens.

Today we are heading into munro country but to reach it, we must cross 50 square miles of the Rannoch Moor, a boggy region of grasses and heather and scores of small ponds and lochanes. I don’t think anyone who wanders off across the moor would ever be heard from again. It is a beautiful and unforgiving place.

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photography, San Miguel de Allende, Scotland - West Highland Way, Writings

Hiking the West Highland Way, Day 7: I’m no Ansel Adams

The infamous Green Welly for all your laundry, camping, and souvenir needs in Tyndrum.

I spent way too much time in the Green Welly mega-plex yesterday. It is right next door to our hotel, The Tyndrum Inn, and among other enterprises, it offers two coin-op washing machines and a dryer. By the end of Day 6, I was badly in need of both.

Surprisingly, the machines were available — maybe because they are outdoors and the wind and rain were formidable or maybe because the bigger washing machine charges 10 pounds per load. Well, desperate times call for desperate measures — or maybe just digging in deep for some cash.

The washing machine quickly ate the money and refused to work. (That begs for a joke but I’ll refrain.) The shop’s maintenance man, Frank, was there in minutes and got my load spinning.

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photography, San Miguel de Allende, Scotland - West Highland Way, Writings

Hiking the West Highland Way: Day 6, ‘Wouldn’t be Scotland without the rain’

Crainlarch to Tyndrum: 7.5 miles, Degree of difficulty: Magical

Yesterday, we all marveled at our good fortune. Five days of walking the West Highland Way with absolutely sublime weather – crisp Autumn mornings, cool afternoons, scattered clouds – perfect for hiking.

So, of course, Day 6 would start in a misty drizzle. It stayed like that off and on all day.

“A perfect Scottish morning!” I replied to one hiker’s greeting.

“It wouldn’t be Scotland without rain,” she replied with a laugh.

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photography, San Miguel de Allende, Scotland - West Highland Way

Hiking the West Highland Way: Day 4, a hiker called it ‘Green Hell’ — now I know why

The WHW trail from Rowardennan to Inverarnan has a bad reputation. No doubt about it. Books call it the hardest stretch in the whole trail. An experienced hiker yesterday called it “Green Hell.”

Let me add to all that: This is one of the hardest things I’ve ever done in my life. Physically, I mean.

The books say this segment is broken into two parts for a total of 14 miles. The reality is you can add a few more miles to that, and a lot of them require climbing up and down, up and down, up and down — over rocks and tree roots, through boggy bits, up steep steps, some ladders, and along nervously narrow cliff-side paths. There are a lot of undulations in that trail.

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Memoirs -- fact and fiction, San Miguel de Allende, Scotland - West Highland Way, Writings

Hiking the West Highland Way: On Day 2, isn’t it eye-conic?

After waking up around 8 a.m., leisurely packing, and enjoying a nice breakfast, it occurs to me that our strategy for hiking the West Highland Way here in Scotland is a good one.

Instead of chewing up the entire 96 miles in 6 or 7 days, we are taking ten. This means later starts most days, a leisurely pace, side trips to curiosities, and an early arrival at our destination. Best of all, time to recover from the previous day’s exertions. Oh, yes, and a wee bit more pub time after we cross the finish line.

Take today for example. We set out to cover the nearly eight miles between Drymen and Balmaha. It is mostly a leisurely uphill stroll through farmland, fallow fields, forests, and fern breaks — until you reach Conic Hill.

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photography, San Miguel de Allende, Scotland - West Highland Way, Uncategorized, Writings

Hiking the West Highland Way: On Day 1 we learn that everyone walks to the beat of a different drummer, and that is just fine

Day 1: Milngavie to Drymen. Distance: 12-13 miles. Level of difficulty: Child’s play.

How long did it take? Maybe less than a mile. No, easily less than a mile.

But, technically, I wasn’t lost.

I just didn’t know where I was headed.

And I did feel … what’s the word I’m reaching for? Ah, yes: Foolish.

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Memoirs -- fact and fiction, photography, San Miguel de Allende, Scotland - West Highland Way

Hiking the West Highland Way: We canned the ‘Outlander’ kilts for lack of abs

It looks like I won’t be wearing a kilt as we hike the West Highland Way.

It’s not that my heart was set up on it. The whole idea started as a bit of a joke. I think Susan suggested that her husband, Brian, wear one because he has nice legs and would look good in one. He good-naturedly went along with the idea.

Rose said my legs were OK, too, and maybe I should wear one. I went hot and cold on the idea.

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photography, San Miguel de Allende, Scotland - West Highland Way, Writings

Hiking the West Highland Way: Ease on down the road

Well, we’re off to see the Wizard.

Or very soon.

Our bus left at 1 p.m. for CDMX, the airport in Mexico City.  Our British Airways flight takes off at 10 p.m. for Edinburgh. There has been discussion over whether nine hours is leaving enough time to make our flight, given the capricious and precarious nature of highway travel in Mexico.

Our first roll of the dice. First of many in the next couple of weeks, I imagine.

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San Miguel de Allende, The Week in SMA

San Miguel events, July 28-August 3: While I hike, you play (updated)

Sometimes, the best thing you can do is just get out and take a hike. Especially now, while the rains have turned the region into an emerald dreamscape. Sure, the roads and trails can be a bit muddy (OK, a lot in some places). These photos, taken on Saturday, were from a walk near the north end of Pressa Allende.

There is a photo below of the extraordinary power of the Obraje stream as it courses and tumbles through the canyon in El Charco del Ingenio, the botanical gardens. See it before the rains slow down and it returns to a trickle!

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Ireland, Memoirs -- fact and fiction, photography, Uncategorized, Writings

One last day, walking Dublin with James Joyce by our side

Walking down Eustace Street in the Temple Bar district, toward the River Liffey as evening begins to set on Dublin.

Leopold Bloom poses a tantalizing puzzle in James Joyce’s epic novel “Ulysses”: “cross Dublin without passing a pub.”

Thanks, I suppose, to computers, GPS, and Google maps, that puzzle has been solved many times over. Why you would want to do it, is a puzzle to me. When in Ireland. …

Here’s a tougher puzzle: Walk across Dublin and not see a reference to James Joyce – be it a photograph, a statue, a quote on a wall, a bookstore window, a mural, a pub name, a simple conversation, or a T-shirt in a tourist shop.

It feels like Joyce is Dublin and Dublin is Joyce, and though he has been dead these many decades, the full ripe glory of his passion for this city is everywhere.

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