Rest day at Glencoe Mountain Resort
The storm hit during the night with high winds and heavy rain, but we were so tired we slept through most of it. We awoke to find everyone panicking to pack up because the campsite had flooded except the wee bit of ground our tent was on.
The next section was Kinlochleven via the Devil’s Staircase. Wind and rain was forecast all day and night – it was no weather for the hills. We’d made up a day by doing two sections at once, so we decided to sit it out. With the campsite flooded the hobbit huts looked inviting…
We went up to the cafe for breakfast and to our relief they had a hut left, they kindly offered to give us the keys straight away. To our surprise we bumped into our trail pals there, who we’d last seen camped up by the river at Inveroran the previous afternoon!
They’d packed up at 4am, and crossed Rannoch Moor in the storm arriving here for breakfast. They got the last hobbit huts so they were staying for the night too.
We headed down to our hut, Maccullum. It was so warm and cosy! We got all our gear out to dry and put the kettle on.
And watched all the poor drenched souls coming in off Rannoch Moor out the window, dwarfed by the imposing mass of a fog-shrouded Buachaille Etive Mòr.
More wet people heading for the welcoming sanctuary of the Glencoe Mountain Resort cafe.
We stayed inside mesmerised watching the rain for hours… (sound on)
Until hunger and the thought of pints motivated us to run up to the cafe during a slight break in the weather.
A soggy friend greeted us by the door on our return to Maccullum.
The sun setting behind the clouds to the west brought hope of better weather the next day. The forecast looked set to improve from the late morning onwards. But before that, it was going to be an even more stormy night than the last.
And it soon disappeared again, taking the mountain with it.
Amazingly the campsite had drained a little during the day and lots of people had set up tents there. But as the night drew in, the rain got heavier and the winds faster, and it flooded again and the tents started collapsing. So the resort opened up the cafe for them to sleep in!
But some people braved it and stayed camped outside. And just before darkness fell, blue sky briefly appeared!
We bid good night to the mountains and got into our cosy bunks.
Tomorrow we’d be making our way between them, toward those distant lights.
