At the end of the hike (365:182)

At the end of the hike (365:182). Copyright © 2011 Gary Allman, all rights reserved.

UK June 2011 – Day 17. It was a long hike.

Our day started early and with a choice. Hike up into the valley to the West of the one we came down last night or take the long route around by road. We didn’t know how good the other path was – it might peter out in a bog like the one we took yesterday. There wasn’t a clear way of joining the path. My hiking pole was broken, and if the route required a lot of hiking on wet grass I could end up slipping and damaging something or myself. We decided the best course of action was going to be to hike out (with our backpacks) the ten mile route by the single track road.

It ended up being only 9.5 miles, but with an elevation gain of 1,034 feet. Which brought the total hike to 14 miles and 1,507 feet. The last couple of miles were another hard slog through soft and boggy ground. It was a choice of that or walk along a main road with very fast traffic. Of course on our way out of Glen Etive we found some fantastic camping places – much nicer than the midge ridden Larch wood we stopped in.

Once back at the car we decided to drive back to Glen Etive and camp at one of the camping spots we’d seen. And that’s exactly what we did. We ended up camping in a beautiful spot by the river Etive. I did try swimming, but it was frightfully cold. Too cold to stay in for any length of time.

Many weeks later back at home we checked out the other route on Google Earth. The path was very good, and our guess as to how to get to it looked about right. So maybe we could have taken the valley route back.