11 miles 

2650 ft of elevation up and 3625 ft of elevation down

Alternate title for this day: Does anyone see the trail?

After waiting for what seemed like forever for breakfast at our lodging in Trevélez, we finally set off on Day 4 of the GR7 after 9am.

We climbed to the top of the quiet village under a cover of clouds, and warmed up quickly in the cool morning air.

When the village ended, we still kept climbing up through mountain farms.

We passed sheep and horses. Dogs and cats.

We criss-crossed the edges of steep slopes, crops planted unfathomably on hills.

Farming already seems like awfully hard work to me on a flat plain, but mountainside farming must be hard on a whole other level.

We rose high above the town of Trevélez fairly quickly.

Early in the day we missed one or two of the GR7 marks and had to back track to find our way.

The red and white markings are usually easy to spot, but there are places where the markings have faded and other places where they are marked along overgrown tracks that no longer resemble a worn trail.

We determined that perhaps this section of the GR7 is less-traveled than the previous days.

For the beginning and ending parts of the day we traveled along a dirt track. Waving goodbye to Trevélez, we looked across the valley at the trail we had been on the previous day. We were drawing a big U-shape with our footsteps with our entrance into and departure from the jamon-themed village.

After a while the trail curved away from the valley and we could no longer see the town behind us.

And soon after leaving the dirt track, the trail seemed to disappear.

It would later reappear, seemingly out of nowhere, complete with clear markings, only to disappear fifteen minutes later.

I used my GPS to follow where the trail should be but often we would have to turn around and find a different way because the way was covered in large branches or impassable overgrowth.

It was slow-going to say the least, and a bit frustrating. We stopped for a snack on a wide expanse of rocks. Someone must have placed them there intentionally at some point, but what for we never figured out.

The rocks served as a good resting point. While the gals had some snacks, I went to scope out the next stretch of trail, looking for the least overgrown way forward.

We later discovered that the recent heavy rains had washed away parts of our trail and covered other bits with lots of debris, which we navigated as best we could.

There were a few falls, several slips and many scrapes and scratches as we traveled the miles between Trevélez and Pitres. It was a trying day to be sure.

I would rejoice when we found a marker or a clear bit of trail. Then I would feel downtrodden fifteen minutes later at losing it again.

We made our way forward, slowly but surely inching closer to our destination.

We stopped for lunch after finally reaching a dirt track again.

When I sat down to eat, I practically fell asleep on my pack.

Apparently getting lost is very tiring!

I was relieved to discover that after lunch we could just follow the dirt track the rest of the way down into town if necessary.

It was a long way down into town, so we stayed on a trail that was shorter than the road. However it crossed the switchbacks of the dirt road over and over again so it was always nearby if we needed it.

At some point we caught up to a cat that walked with us most of the way down. Our new companion charmed the girls so much that they perked up at the end of a long day.

Between our late start and the slow progress of bush-wacking, this day seemed to wear on forever.

We reached a point where we could see Pórtugos, a town that was just a mile or two before Pitres. We decided we would stop in Pórtugos for much needed refreshment and call it the end of the day.

While we rested, we expressed much gratitude for finally being off the mountain.

Then we decided to take a picture of how we all really felt at this point in the day.

Laughing, we filed into Pórtugos and found a young waiter willing to bring us veggies and drinks even though the restaurant was shutting down for the afternoon.

We ordered up a big plate of patatas a lo pobre (poor man’s potatoes) with eggs on top.

The waiter laughed at our bad Spanish and at how ravenous we all were.

We never wanted to leave, but eventually it was time to walk the last mile to Pitres and find our hotel.

Pitres was so quiet when we arrived that for a moment, I wasn’t sure it was inhabited.

I interrupted an older gentleman’s nap at the hotel in order to ask for our rooms. He was sleeping around the corner from the desk in an armchair.

After I disturbed him a second time for the wifi code, I told the gals that we needed to let that poor man sleep. No more questions.

Which was fine, because they all crawled into their beds for naps as well.

After a warm shower, I went to make dinner arrangements. After the previous night’s terrible meal and the morning’s disappointing breakfast, we were overdue for some yummy food. I felt we had earned it after the day we’d had.

Thankfully, in Pitres, there is a master chef from Malaga who came to the countryside for a quiet life. He opened this beautiful restaurant overlooking the mountains in Pitres and serves up his gorgeous creations each night to the lucky few who wander into the village and find him.

We were the only ones at El Jardin del Mirador that night. I had to drag the gals out of bed and up the hill to the restaurant. We walked up there feeling like we could just as easily have gone to bed rather than have dinner at all.

At El Jardin de Mirador, there are tables outside with beautiful views, but the temps were dropping as we arrived so we sat inside the small cozy spot.

Our host listed off the various dishes he could make for us and everyone chose different ones so we would have a variety.

He cooked all the meat on his grill, and then he would come inside and hand our plates through a little window from the kitchen.

We were all revived as we enthusiastically oohed and ahhhed over every dish that came through the window.

The chef told us he had been in Pitres for several years, but that he had grown tired of the small-mindedness of the village.

Everyone in this town would rather just have a pizza place!

He said he was headed back to Malaga soon to open a new restaurant there.

When we discovered that El Mirador was in its last season, it felt so special that we had spent an evening there.

It was like we found a secret (and temporary) door that opened onto the best meal of our whole week.

We promised to come find him in Malaga when we next returned to Spain.

He couldn’t believe how far we were walking. Then he told us that we were sure to be in the rain the whole next day.

Oh no, I said. It won’t rain on us. 

At the end of the night, he poured out goodbye shots. It was Zoco, a Spanish liqueur made from sloe berries.

We giggled and talked on top of each other all the way back to the hotel.

It’s amazing how a good meal and a lovely evening can wash away even the roughest of days.

This is the fourth in a series of posts about hiking the GR7 in Spain in the Alpujarras. Many of the photos come from my fellow hikers: Kristie, Eve, Zoe, Alexis and Kelsy! I’m super thankful to them for trusting me to lead them on this adventure. 

If you enjoy reading about my wanderings, consider subscribing to get future updates.

The post GR7 in Spain Day 4: Trevélez to Pitres appeared first on Alison Chino.

11 miles

3000 feet of elevation up and 2200 of elevation down

We woke up early for Day 3 of our walk on the GR7 in Spain.

Because we had our breakfast already prepared in the fridge we could choose the time, a small luxury when you’re at the mercy of B&B hosts and their schedules.

So we had a 7:30am breakfast of hard-boiled eggs, toast, yogurt, granola, fresh fruit and a cheese and cured meats platter. It was a massive amount of breakfast compared to the previous days and we ended up packing up some of it into our equally massive sack lunches.

Then we strapped on our packs and started to climb out of Bérchules into the hills.

I love going uphill in the morning if there is a little chill in the air. The cold pushes you to climb just a little faster so that you warm up.

We were going to cross our highest point of the week so we had a lot of climbing to do. 

We weren’t climbing the Mulhacen but we were going to hike up to what would be our best view of it. 

High in the Alpujarran hills, I expected that we might even spot snow. 

After a good start at climbing we stopped for a midmorning break on the hillside. We broke out the rest of breakfast and even a bit of lunch though it was still before 11.

After our break we walked steadily uphill and came to a forest where we did indeed find some snow that had not yet melted. The shade of the trees protected some little frozen patches.

It certainly wasn’t an amount to have fretted over as I had done just a bit when I had arrived in Granada and glimpsed the snow topped Sierra Nevada, living up to its name. 

It was just enough snow to be fun, exciting to glimpse evidence that we were right at the beginning of the proper hiking season. 

We had the mountains all to ourselves. We passed no other hikers on this day and very few on any of the other days, which is unusual for me when hiking in Europe.

I don’t know if there is a high season for hiking the GR7, but I wouldn’t imagine it is in summer when the temperatures soar above 90 degrees F, even in the mountains.

We felt like we were hitting the trail at the exact perfect time, even if most of the villages were very quiet.

At the high point of the day (6600 feet), we took lots of photos while the Mulhacen darted in and out of the clouds behind us.

We were all feeling the exhilaration of making it to the highest point of the week.

The mountain vibes were in full effect!

I think we all managed to leave this spot with a new hiking profile pic. 

It was a little early for another food stop so we carried on along a dirt road that started to descend.

When our tummies started rumbling, we found an outcropping of rocks just off the trail for our picnic. 

We were all super excited for our packed lunches as our host in Berchules had gone all out. 

Besides the usual sandwiches and crisps, she included many small treasures: little foil packs of sliced cucumbers, dried figs, hard boiled eggs and little juice boxes.

After our feast, we had some naps, or at least resting our eyes.

We had used a lot of energy on the climb.

After naps, it was time to descend. 

And descend and descend. 

Oh how my knees miss climbing when it’s time to go down. 

Grateful for the trekking poles that save our joints, we kept descending until soon we could spot Trevélez in the valley below. 

The mountains seemed even bigger, while the town seemed to stay far in the distance.

Trevélez is the highest village in Spain.

The village is famous for hams. Jamon de Trevelez is famous all over Spain and especially all over Andalucia. The hams cure in the mountain air in warehouses.

And I believe the pigs are corn-fed to make the taste of the ham even better.

Eventually the village got close enough that we knew we were almost there.

We came up over one more hill and then wow, we were so close!

Finally, beautiful Treveléz.

To get into town we crossed over a river, and so true to our trip theme, we had to make a stop to make love to the water.

After the long descent, it felt so good to soak our feet in the freezing cold mountain water.

I got all the way in up to my knees to help with inflammation.

After we checked into our rooms, we found a cafe with a table in the sun and immediately ordered up some drinks and of course, some Trevélez jamon.

The gals said it was delish, and I took their word for it since I don’t eat meat.

Once we’d rested for a long while, we wandered about the village.

I took so many photos of these handmade pot covers.

The whole village was decorated in these brightly colored crocheted pot covers and banners.

And of course, with hams.

You could purchase both in just about every shop.

In fact, this village had more shops than any of our previous stops so my fellow hikers found some treasures to fill the very little space left in their backpacks.

There were large warehouses where the hams were hanging to cure.

But we never saw any live pigs, which confused us until we realized that the hams are sent to the mountain village to cure, but the pigs aren’t actually raised there. Zoë discovered this by asking the locals questions in Spanish. Since she couldn’t remember the word in Spanish for “pig”, she asked (to the immediate amusement of everyone around us) “Where are the hams that are not dead?”

You can buy anything in the shape of a ham in Trevélez: earrings, key chains, magnets. You can even press the shape of a ham onto a penny as a souvenir.

It was a good thing we ate such a lovely snack and drinks in the square when we arrived because our hostess wasn’t quite open for the season yet. We realized this when everything we had for dinner was brought out from her freezer. It was not our best meal of the week, but we ate it gratefully and went to bed, super tired and dreaming of hams.

This is the third in a series of posts about a week of hiking the GR7 in Spain in the Alpujarras in early Spring (March/April). Many of the photos come from my fellow hikers: Kristie, Eve, Zoe, Alexis and Kelsy! I’m super thankful to them for trusting me to lead them on this adventure. 

If you enjoy reading about my wanderings, consider subscribing to get future updates.

The post GR7 in Spain Day 3: Bérchules to Trevélez appeared first on Alison Chino.

OR

alternatively this day could be titled:

Make Love to the Water

We headed out early on Day 2, our first REAL walking day on the GR7. We would cover over 10 miles with some more significant elevation drops and gains on our way to the next village on our itinerary: Bérchules.

We headed downhill out of Yegen into the morning sunshine.

It was a beautiful spring day, exactly the kind I dream about when I am training throughout the winter in the cold rain.

Much of our trail was made up of old donkey tracks that had been paved over, so we pounded the pavement for miles.

Whenever the tracks turned to gravel, my knees and ankles were grateful for a little more give in the ground, even if the dusty trails kicked up bits of rock into our shoes.

The trail markings on the GR7 are generally very good, but occasionally we had trouble spotting them. Sometimes the sun had faded the paint on the marker,  and the whole post blended into the mountainside. You had to get closer to spot it.

Soon the sun rose high enough in the sky to reach us on the trail and we warmed up fast, shedding layers and drinking more water.

After descending a while, we started to climb to Mecina Bombaron, a village that we had planned to stop in if there was an open cafe as it was the only one we would pass through on this day. Originally I had planned for us to sleep in Cadiar, but there hadn’t been a place to stay that was open for the season and would hold all six of us, so we were pushing on to Bércheles, skirting around Cadiar altogether, opting to avoid an extra 1000 ft drop down and back up again.

It was already a steady uphill climb to the next village without dropping down to Cadiar, but the cool mountain air made for such a pleasant morning of walking.

I wanted us to log several miles before the sun got too high, but a theme of this trail is that if you find an open cafe, you should go ahead and stop, even if you aren’t too hungry or tired yet, because there might not be another one for a long time.

So we took full advantage of the open bar in Mecina Bombaron and stopped for second breakfast. (Our first breakfast had been instant coffee, yogurt cups and fruit from the tiny supermarket in Yegen.)

Fresh squeezed orange juice in Spain is one of my most favorite treats, so I ordered up a round of jugo de naranja and cafe con leche.

We also had the ubiquitous toast with tomato puree, olive oil, ham and cheese before moving along through the village.

Mecina Bombaron carried on the “book” theme from Yegen, another nod to the famous author that lived and wrote there.

As we left the village, we stopped at a fountain to refill our water bottles.

An older gentleman was drinking from the fountain and told us that the water from this particular fountain was the very best in all of the Alpujarras.

Then he put his whole head under the fountain, turning it from side to side and just letting the water run down his face.

He gestured to us to follow his example.

I wasn’t quite hot enough yet to be dunking my head in the cold fountain, but he was insistent.

You can’t only drink it, you must MAKE LOVE to the water!

Clearly we were not convinced, so he continued,

If you do not play, you will miss your life!

I was trying to decide if I was going to volunteer when Zoe removed her her hat and stuck her head in the water.

The old man was so delighted and we all cheered for her.

Most of us had just met Zoe, but we all fell in love with her when she stuck her head in that fountain.

We were all laughing as we left the village to rejoin the GR7, and just like that, Make love to the water! became both a catchphrase and theme of our whole trip.

We would come back to it again and again.

I love a good swim on a hot day, especially after a hike, but now I will forever phrase the glory of a post-hike dip as making love to the water.

The day began to properly heat up as we carried on, so were glad we had all re-filled bottles at the fountain.

By the time we decided to stop for lunch, everyone would probably have been happy to find a little water to dunk our heads into, but we were up high and there was none to be found.

We did find the perfect picnic spot though, high on the trail and across the valley from our destination.

Bérchules seemed close enough to reach out and touch, but in reality it was further away than we imagined.

We ate our packed lunches on sunny rocks looking over the valley and just soaking up the beautiful day.

After lunch, we carried on down a road that seemed like it was heading away from Berchules in the opposite direction, but then Kelsy spotted a gate that had some faint markings for the GR7 on it.

We opened it up and took the small track behind it down into the valley.

The valley had a fairly steep drop off to our left so we couldn’t quite see how we were going to cross it, but the trail revealed itself as we carried on.

As trails often do.

Walking a new trail requires a bit of faith. Sometimes you have to move forward without being able to see what’s ahead.

You have to believe that the way will emerge as you carry on. There will be a way. You just don’t know what it looks like yet.

Then you come around a rock and you see the trail start to cut switchbacks back and forth across what seemed like an impossible ravine edge.

From below, we looked back up at the layers of rock we had come down and the trail seemed to have disappeared behind us.

A small river cut through the bottom of the ravine. We walked across the bridge over the river and onto the trail on the other side before I realized that we should absolutely not pass up an opportunity to make love to the water!

Y’all! We should go back and make love to that water! And so we did.

Because we don’t want to miss our lives by not playing.

And also icy cold water on tired feet is SUCH a balm!

Then we dried off, put our boots back on and climbed the hill to the village.

By now it was getting on in the afternoon and we were craving our post-hike drinks and snacks.

We hoped that everything wasn’t closed for siesta yet!

Fortunately there was an open bar in town, so we made our way inside and collapsed at a long table. The bar had some cheese puffs for sale on the wall. So we grabbed a bag and dumped it out on the table.

I think we finished them all before our drinks even came.

Clearly, we needed to pack more lunch tomorrow. We also ordered an extra large sandwich that looked like a giant doughnut. You cut it into pieces to have several small sandwiches. So clever.

After our bar stop, we found the hotel where we were staying, but they were having a plumbing problem. The water had been turned off in the entire hotel, which also included the restaurant where we were hoping to have dinner.

But our sweet hosts, a mother and daughter from the Netherlands, had prepared some other apartments they own for us. They usually rent them out by the week but they offered them to us in place of the hotel rooms.

They turned out to be so beautiful with balconies overlooking the Alpujarras and little fridges stocked with drinks.

We all said we would LOVE to come back and stay in them for longer.

We spread out over the balconies and soaked up the last of the sunshine.

We laughed about the day and looked at the map for the next day’s hike while our hosts cooked us the most beautiful dinner.

A Moroccan dish cooked in a clay tagine with beans and veggies.

They also brought us breakfast for the next morning and generous sack lunches for the next day.

We felt so spoiled and as I went to sleep I said a little prayer that our sweet hosts would be able to get the hotel plumbing fixed before the Easter Holidays. Apparently it’s really hard to get work done in these remote villages and our hosts were on the cusp of the busier season, so they really needed a plumber to come.

Because obviously you need working toilets, sinks and showers in a hotel. I was so grateful that we had not had to forgo showers!

After a hike, a shower feels so good. You just want to stay in there forever. It’s like making love to the water.

This is the second in a series of posts about a week of hiking the GR7 in Spain in the Alpujarras. Many of the photos were taken by my fellow hikers: Kristie, Eve, Zoe, Alexis and Kelsy! I’m super thankful to them for trusting me to lead them on this adventure. 

If you enjoy reading about my wanderings, consider subscribing to get future updates.

The post GR7 in Spain Day 2: Yegen to Bérchules appeared first on Alison Chino.

It’s often a mystery to me how a trail ends up on my list of ones I’m hoping to get around to. I heard about the GR7 in Spain from several sources, but I think the main reason I finally put it on the calendar and made it happen is that the portion of this trial in Andalucía is so far south in Europe that it can be comfortably hiked in early spring.

The GR trails are a massive network of trails all over Europe. I believe they started in France so GR stands for Grandes Randonnées, but in Spain they are called the Grans Recorridos. And they have different names in other countries, but mainly a GR is a long trail, a way to wander around Europe in the most delightful way possible…on foot.

The GR7 runs through France, Andorra and Spain. The portion that runs through the Alpujarras in the Sierra Nevada in the far south of Spain seemed like the perfect next journey for my crew of spring hikers who are game to head off just about anywhere I suggest within reason. We roped in a couple of new friends and off we went!

We met in late in March in Granada, where the sunshine was plentiful but the evening temps still required puffy jackets. Perfect for hiking. We could even see snow in the mountains in the distance.

We had an afternoon and evening in Granada before taking off for those mountains.

It was just long enough in Granada to want a little more time, so we were glad we had booked another day there at the end of our trip to see the Alhambra.

We wandered the old town and found our way to a drinks spot with a view of the Alhambra.

Some of us were just meeting and some of us hadn’t seen each other since last year so we had lots of catching up to do.

We laughed over drinks and then once we were too cold too sit outside any longer, we climbed higher to a Moroccan restaurant where we had dinner.

Before the food came we warmed up with the most beautiful pots of tea.

It was just the beginning of noticing all the North African influences in Andalucía for my group. The next morning we stopped for breakfast at a cafe with colorful lamps everywhere that reminded me of the teapots from the night before.

The Hike Begins

I had requested that we make a very early start from Granada so we would have time to stop for breakfast along the way. So at 7:06am we left our hotel and walked the two miles to the spot in Granada where we were catching the bus to the Alpujarras. I had planned only a five mile walk on the start of the trail that afternoon, so it seemed like a good idea to add a couple miles more that morning.

As I marched us through the quiet morning streets of Granada, my newbies expressed a little consternation to their friends about how quickly we were moving.

Kristie and Alexis confessed to me later that they had both reassured Eve and Zoe that I would not walk this fast all week. But it was cold and dark and I did not want us to miss our bus. The next one was at 5:40pm. So yes, I was moving quickly.

We stopped for a quick coffee and a classic Spanish breakfast: bread spread with tomato puree, olive oil, ham and cheese. (We would see A LOT of this breakfast in the week ahead!) Of course, I was tapping my toe and rushing everyone along so that we could get over to the bus stop and wait.

And wait.

And wait.

The bus was late enough that I started to research other ways to get into the Alpujarras.

It was late enough that I asked random people at the bus stop where they were going and if they knew anything about the Alsa Bus to the Alpujarras.

It was late enough that any bus that came along, I boarded and asked if the driver had any information about the Alsa Bus to the Alpujarras.

I was starting to formulate a plan about what we could do for the day if we had to wait for the 5:40pm bus. Had we missed the morning bus? Had it come early?

I wasn’t in a panic, but my brain was in overdrive creating Plans B, C and D.

And then the bus arrived exactly 37 minutes late.

We got on. I let everyone know we would be on it for a while and the road getting into the mountains would have a lot of twists and turns. So several of my jet-lagged American friends fell asleep as we made our way out of Granada and up into the hills. After about an hour, we stopped in Lanjaron where I would spend a week the following September. Then we drove through some of the towns we would walk back through. The road snaked up and up, and I was amazed that the driver could navigate such a large bus around all the narrow curves.

After several hours on winding roads, the driver pulled over on the side of the highway and let us out in the absolute middle of nowhere. From the side of the road, I directed my sleepy friends up a small lane in the sun where we reached the very quiet village of Mecina Alfahar. I had hoped we might have some lunch there, but thankfully we all were prepared with snacks because there was a whole lot of nothing open in Mecina Alfahar, which would be a bit of a theme on this trail.

So we pulled out our oranges and snack bars and headed up the hill to find the trail.

We hiked a few miles in the hot sun before we reached the village of Válor, which thankfully, had an open cafe!

We were able to get some food (Spanish tortilla!!) and a drink I had recently learned about on a previous trip: Tinto Verano.

Tinto is red wine and verano means summer, so this beverage is cold red wine mixed with sparkling lemonade. It seems more common in Andalucía than sangria and I like it better. (But it’s hard to steer me away from a cold Spanish lager.)

After some refreshment, we carried on in the hot spring sunshine. Because of the bus and the late start, we were walking at the hottest part of the day, which helped us be motivated to get an earlier start the next few days.

All the villages have spring fed fountains with water from the mountains, so we would refill and cool off with a little splash here and there.

We rolled into Yegen a little after 4pm.

Ending the GR7 in Spain in Yegen on Day 1

Most of the villages of the Alpujarras are pretty chill. But Yegen is next-level quiet.

Its claim to fame is that British author George Brenan lived here in the 1920s. I had never heard of him but his book South From Granada is a bit of a British classic about Spain and I later read it. The most amazing part of his story is that when he lived here, the village was only accessible by donkey or foot, so if he had visitors, he would walk all the way to Granada to escort them back to his house. He regularly WALKED the journey that took us over three hours by bus. I had to pause reading the book on multiple occasions to just wonder at his wild scrambles across the Alpujarras.

But now, even though you can drive a car to Yegen, the village is probably less populated than it was in George Brenan’s day. There is a tiny little supermarket at the bottom of the village that we explored to restock our snacks for the next day and for breakfast because our host wasn’t serving breakfast until 9am and I wanted us on the trail well before then.

We rinsed out our sweaty clothes and then tried to catch all the remaining sunshine before the evening air brought in the chill.

By dinnertime, we were cold enough for a fire. We were staying in the only pub in town but it was closed on the day we arrived. However, our host, an Irish lady who had moved to Yegen over 20 years ago, agreed to make us dinner. She reminded us more than once that it was her day off, and so we felt a little awkward about coming up for dinner, but there was nowhere else in town to eat and we had exhausted the resources of the little supermarket.

While we enjoyed the fire in the chilly dining room, she gave us our choices (pork belly or steak, veggie plate for me) and then headed off to the kitchen to prepare everything. We devoured the food when it came which was good because very soon it was time for us to go. Our host had a lot to do, and again reminded us that it was supposed to be her day off.

So we went to our rooms like good little children and she locked the doors behind us so we wouldn’t help ourselves to more drinks in the pub.

Thankfully there was another door to the outside from the hallway, so we could get out the next morning.

Before we went to sleep, we made cups of tea in our rooms and watched the most beautiful Alpujarran sunset through the windows before settling into bed. The early start had caught up to us. I think I was asleep before my head hit the pillow.

This is the first in a series of posts about a week of hiking the GR7 in Spain in the Alpujarras. Many of the photos were taken by my fellow hikers: Kristie, Eve, Zoe, Alexis and Kelsy! I’m super thankful to them for trusting me to lead them on this adventure. 

If you enjoy reading about my wanderings, consider subscribing to get future updates.

The post GR7 Spain: Day 1: Mecina Alfahar to Yegen appeared first on Alison Chino.

I often receive emails with questions about how to plan a Camino or about the Camino in general.

There is A LOT to know about the Camino.

There are over 200 recognized Camino routes. I have barely scratched the surface of Camino walking! So of course, I can’t possibly cover everything, but I can tell you what I tell folks when they ask. And maybe, if you find yourself planning a Camino, which, by the way, I highly recommend, you might find some of it helpful.

If you ask me how to plan your Camino, first, I’ll start by asking you some questions. The answers to these questions can help you map out the best Camino for you, which is important. There are as many ways to do the Camino as there are people walking it. I believe that the Camino’s accessibility is part of what makes it such a great experience, so please feel the freedom to craft your Camino your way. 

And part of how you do that is by asking and answering questions:

Do you want to complete a Camino or just walk on a Camino path somewhere?

How much time do you have to walk?
When do you want to go?

Do you want to walk by yourself or with others?
Do you want to stay in communal hostels or in bed and breakfasts/hotels?

Do you want to carry your stuff or use a luggage service?

So let’s take those questions one by one.

Do you want to complete a Camino or just walk on a Camino path somewhere?

All Camino roads lead to Santiago de Compostela, the official end point of the Camino. Do you want to walk into Santiago de Compostela on your trip or are you looking for a pretty section of the Camino to walk?

If you want to reach Santiago on your Camino, then you take the amount of time you have to walk and work backwards from the town. If you have a chunk of time and you just want to spend it “somewhere” on the Camino, then I might recommend a more scenic stretch of the Camino that does not necessarily get you all the way to Santiago.

How much time do you have to walk?

So if you know you want to reach Santiago and you have a week, consider walking the last 100 km from Sarria to Santiago. If you have 35 days, maybe you want to walk the 800 kilometers from St Jean Pied a Port and walk into Spain from France. If you have two weeks, consider walking from Astorga to Santiago or taking the Portuguese Camino from Porto. 

If you have a week to walk and you don’t mind if you reach Santiago this time, you might walk from St Jean Pied a Port to Livorno. That way, you will have walked the “beginning” of the Camino Frances and if you fall in love with Camino walking, you can come back and pick up where you left off. Another fun week would be to walk from Irun to Bilbao on the Camino del Norte or you could walk all the way to Santander if you have two weeks. When choosing a random section of the Camino, if you only have a week or two, it’s best to pay attention to which entry and exit points are easier to get to. You don’t want to end your walk in a tiny town with no bus or train service. 

Also in choosing a route, ask yourself if you are most after the “Camino camaraderie” or scenery/beautiful trails. My favorite trail in Portugal is the Rota Vicentina in the south of the country, but I loved walking the Camino Portugues into Santiago for the traditional “Camino” experience. 

On the final 100km on the Camino Frances and on the Camino Portugues, there will be lots of other pilgrims. 

When do you want to go?

The Camino routes in Spain are open all year long, but if you go between May and September, the weather will be warmer (so you can carry less) and there will be more fellow pilgrims. 

I have walked the Camino as late as November, which had its own kind of charm. Fewer pilgrims but strong camaraderie. We didn’t book ahead because we weren’t competing for beds, but also a lot of albergues were closed for the season. But the weather was definitely a challenge most days. (We had rain, snow and sleet on the trail.)

If you have flexibility I recommend April-early June before it gets too hot in Southern Europe or late September-October. The routes are very popular from May to September, so I would book lodging ahead of time, which brings us to the next question.

Private albergues vs public albergues? And b&bs or hotels?

Some pilgrims really like to just go with the flow and walk as far as they can and then find a bed. Most of the time, I am not that pilgrim. I like to map out how far I am going each day. I know myself and about how far I can walk each day. And I also find that I can walk as far as I have planned to walk. I would posit that even if you know where you are ending up each day, you can still go with the flow, stop for breaks when you want, take as long as you want throughout the day, but while still having an exact destination in mind so that you know you have a place to sleep and (if using a transfer service) where to send your luggage each day. 

So when you get ready to start making your bookings, decide if you want to stay in hostels or in private rooms. If you’re walking with a friend or two, you can usually get a private room for close to the same price of 2-3 beds in a shared bunk room. (This is one advantage of walking the Camino with others.) If I am walking on my own, I usually do a mix of private rooms and hostels. 

I stay in a private room about every third night. After a couple of nights in hostels, I just want to get a really good night of sleep, be able to go to the bathroom in the middle of the night without putting on clothes and not listen to other people snoring or alarms going off at 5:45am. 

But I love an albergue that has a shared meal option, so that you are at the dinner table with others and you have a chance to meet and talk to other pilgrims in shared spaces. 

A lot of public albergues do not take reservations (although more and more do) and you have to bring your own sleeping bag or sleeping bag liner (summer), so I lean more towards private albergues that have linens and duvets so I don’t have to carry them. Many private albergues also have towels and toiletries. (More things that don’t have to go in my pack.)

If you are walking your Camino in the summer, as a treat, I would look for places with a/c and/or swimming pools for at least a few of the nights.

You can book rooms ahead of time easily with Gronze, which has the best and most updated lodging lists that include hostels. The website is in Spanish but you can use a browser to translate it if you don’t read Spanish. Or if you prefer, you can use booking.com or even a Camino guidebook to find places to stay. 

Do you want to carry your stuff or use a luggage service?

For me, figuring out the answer to this question is all about how much stuff you want to bring. My favorite way to Camino is to carry my small 24 liter pack. If I am walking alone, I don’t transfer anything and I don’t store things in Santiago for before/after the trip. You can buy a new outfit in Santiago if you’re sick of your hiking clothes. Honestly you can buy anything you need on most Camino routes. 

But usually when I lead a group on the Camino, I have the option of luggage transfer because it’s quite hard to get people to leave home without over-packing. Haha. But I’m training folks. For about half the trips I lead, we just take smaller packs. You’ll be amazed at how you just don’t need that much, especially in the summer months. And it’s so freeing to have less. Because you are moving every night, the small pack keeps you from exploding (as much) all over the room every day, and it’s quick to pack up in the mornings. 

However, this is an area where it’s helpful to know yourself. The handy thing about the luggage transfer is that you can take along the extra shoes and then change if something is not working. You can wear tennis shoes on easy days and hiking boots on harder days. You can leave your rain gear in the suitcase on sunny days and only carry your water and your snacks in a day pack. 

There are all kinds of reasons that some people just can’t carry a backpack and so it’s great that the luggage transfer service is available. You can book it online at Correos and make adjustments to your schedule right up to before you leave if you need to. 

So once you know how long you’re going, when you’re going, what kinds of places you want to stay and what you’re bringing, you have most of your Camino sorted. You just need to buy a plane ticket and book your lodging. You’re on your way.

BUT HERE ARE SOME OTHER QUESTIONS YOU MIGHT HAVE

Can someone else plan my Camino for me?

Yes! Two services I recommend for doing most the planning for you: Ramble Worldwide or MacsAdventure. These services will also book your luggage transfer and for an additional fee will get you from the airport to the start of your walk if you want. I have worked with both of these companies over the years and they are both great. Ramble Worldwide even does a group tour from Sarria if you want to walk with a group. (I lead tours for them a few times a year.)

How do I train for the Camino?

What I love about the Camino is that people from all walks of life make their way to this trail. All ages and all varieties of fitness levels are represented. Many people do it without any preparation, but the more you do ahead of time, the more you are going to enjoy your Camino.

Here is a great 12 week training plan for walking the Camino. If you find it hard to keep the schedule this training plan suggests, incorporate as much of it as you can.

Mostly I tell people to just get walking. Walk to work. Walk to the store. Google how far it is to the places you normally drive. For the places that are less than 5 miles away, start walking. Walk at least 4 days a week. Start slow and build up. Walk in the shoes you are going to wear on the Camino and carry the backpack you are going to take.

What shoes should I wear?

People walk a lot of the traditional Camino routes in every possible kind of footwear. It is such a well established path that you don’t necessarily need hiking boots. I walk the latter sections of the Camino in trail runners, so not a full on hiking boot but a bit more supportive than a tennis shoe. But if I’m hiking for longer than a week, I walk in a full hiking boot. I find I just need the support for longer treks. 

My favorite hiking boots are Scarpas and my favorite trailrunners are Altras. But I have a wide toe box with a narrow heel so those are the brands that have worked consistently for me. So try on lots of different shoes to see what works best for you. Buy several pairs and walk around for a day in your house to figure out which ones feel the best over time and then return the rest. Or buy from REI because they will let you return them even after you hike in them!  

How do I get to/from the airport in Santiago/Madrid/Barcelona?

Follow up/similar questions to this one include:

Should I fly into Madrid and then make my way to Santiago? 

If I find a cheap ticket to London, then can I just book a separate flight to Santiago?

If you are short on time (like you don’t have time to visit London/Madrid/city you are flying into), then book a flight all the way to where you are going. If possible, I book a multi-city flight to fly into where I’m starting and out of where I am finishing.

If you’re walking from Sarria to Santiago, fly in/out of Santiago, get a bus to Sarria and then walk to Santiago. If you’re walking from St Jean to Livorno, fly in/out of Pamplona. Or you can fly into Pamplona, get a bus to St Jean and then fly out of Livorno. If walking from Porto to Santiago, I’d fly into Porto and out of Santiago.

Flying in/out of different airports or into smaller towns tends to be more expensive on the front end, but whenever I try to fly into a bigger city to get a cheaper flight, I usually spend whatever I saved on airport hotels because I end up needing to stay in that town in order to fly out the next day. That is in addition to the cost of buses/trains from the city. Also I lose a day on either end, which I don’t mind if I have plenty of time. There is a new fast train from Madrid to Santiago that I would totally take if I was trying to spend some time in Madrid.

Also if you fly into a big town and then book a budget airline (Ryanair or Easyjet) separately, you have to give yourself a lot of time between your arrival flight and the departing one. As they are not linked, if you miss your flight, you will have to buy another one at the last minute. Also, the budget airlines charge extra for any bags you carry on so the “cheap flight” isn’t always as inexpensive as it seems. 

To figure out the best way to get from one place to the other I use the app Rome2Rio. To buy train tickets in Spain I use Spanish train app/website Renfe and for buses I use the local bus apps, often it’s an Alsa bus I need but it’s good to check all the options. For checking flight prices, I use Kayak and Skyscanner to set alerts for flights I’m watching.

How do I navigate the Camino? Do I need a guidebook?

I use Alltrails for all hiking navigation these days. I pay for the subscription so I can download maps and have them offline. They still work with my phone on airplane mode.

You can also use a guidebook if you want, but I don’t think they are super necessary. I usually read one from the library before I go and make notes of anything I want to remember because I don’t want to carry it.

For the Camino Frances and Camino Portugues, all you need to do is follow the arrows. Really! They are so well-marked. For lesser marked routes, I sometimes download a guidebook ahead of time, but I usually find that just the map in Alltrails is enough.

I also use the Buen Camino app to see all the info for each town.

Should I read anything else before I go on the Camino?

Isn’t the Camino Frances really crowded? Especially the part from Sarria to Santiago?

There are so many different opinions about this but I actually think it is one of the benefits of the trail. It is amazing to get to experience the feeling of walking with people from all over the world to the same place. It’s beautiful to me. And if you lean into it, you’ll have your world widened by meeting so many people. But also, you might have to wait in line for a bathroom or a coffee. Even this can be an opportunity to just enjoy the slow pace of walking and meet someone new. 

I find that if the path feels a bit full in the morning, over the day you get spread out on the trail and it’s not that bad. And because so many are walking, you will find that there is water/drinks/food/bathrooms wherever you need them, which makes the walking really easy to me. You just follow the other folks on the trail and stop whenever you need a rest. 

One way you can avoid a little of the congestion is to book places to stay that aren’t in the main towns. I usually do a little bit of this but it’s tricky because you have to make sure they serve an evening meal since you’re not close to the restaurants in town. One thing I have found is that after we finish for the day, sometimes folks don’t want to walk a long way to dinner because they are tired. So it can be a relief to stay in places where they serve dinner and breakfast in addition to having rooms so that when you arrive for the day, you don’t have to move again unless you want to.

What do I pack for the Camino?

I have two Camino packing lists, one for if I am carrying only my 24 liter backpack and another packing list for if you are transferring a carry on suitcase every day while only carrying a small day pack on the Camino. 

Like I said earlier, when I take folks, sometimes we carry our packs and sometimes I have everyone bring a small day pack and a carry-on suitcase, and then I have the suitcases moved every day. It really depends on the group I am taking, but if possible, I prefer to make the decision ahead of time because if you pack in a large backpack and then decide on the trail that you want to start shipping it, then you need to purchase something else to carry while you walk because you still need something for your water, rain jacket, etc. 

I have a (very rambly, unpolished) video showing what to pack in a small backpack for a week or two of hiking that you can watch if you want. It’s a video I made for folks who are coming hiking with me so it won’t all apply to your Camino. I’ve also done a video for if you are traveling with a day pack and moving bags. This second video was made as we were coming out of the pandemic, so there are some dated bits. Also, I mention buying SIM cards ahead of time but now you can get an inexpensive eSim on Airalo or a similar service, if you have an unlocked phone. 

Do I need trekking poles?

I don’t use trekking poles on most of the Camino Frances or the Camino Portugués. It’s mostly level paths so I don’t find that I need them. If you change your mind you can buy them there. I do use trekking poles for hiking harder trails and for sections of the Camino that have more elevation.

Do you have specific recommendations for where to eat or stay?

I stay and eat at different places every time I go, and there are always new albergues and cafes opening, so it’s impossible to keep track of everything. However, I do have a few favorites that I try to not miss when I head to the Camino, so I’ll list them below for each Camino.

Camino Frances

I recommend staying at La Casona de Sarria if you start in Sarria.

In Portomarin, we always hit up D’Gusta Cafe for breakfast before we hit the trail. Yummy coffee, bacon and egg option (unusual on the Camino), tostadas and other pastries. 

Casa Roan Casa Rural This family-run rural stay is off the trail a bit (near Ligonde), but they will come pick you up from the Camino, feed you dinner, give you a beautiful room, feed you breakfast and drive you back to the trail. I don’t generally like to leave the Camino, but one year I was trying to shorten the stage from Portomarin to Palas de Rei, so I ended up staying here and now I always go back. Their outdoor spaces are like a little retreat on a sunny afternoon. 

Casa Domingo has my favorite cookies and pastries on the trail. 

For a splurge experience, 1930 Boutique Hotel in Arzua is maybe the most beautiful hotel on the whole Camino Frances with an exquisite dinner (and breakfast) experience. You’ll never want to leave. If you want to stay in a hostel in town but just want a special dinner spurge, they have a sister restaurant in town that might be your best meal of the whole Camino: Casa Nené.

If you miss everything else on this list, don’t miss the little farm shop right on the Camino called A Granxa de Tato. If you are staying in Arzua and you didn’t get breakfast, wait until you get here and have breakfast here, in the garden if it’s a pretty day. If it’s cold, there is a fireplace inside. Cozy inside and out, I have found I can spend hours in this tiny spot looking at the artwork and reading the messages on the communal board left by other pilgrims. I have a gorgeous painting hanging on my wall that my Camino group bought here for me one year.

Camino Portugues

Do not miss staying at Casa Fernanda.

What about the spiritual experience of the Camino? Do I have to be religious? Or Catholic?

The Camino has a long beautiful tradition of being a spiritual pilgrimage, but there are plenty of folks doing the Camino as “just a walk.”

However, sometimes folks who are looking for a deep spiritual journey don’t find it to be as meaningful as they had hoped and sometimes folks who are “just doing a walk” end up finding the experience to be wildly meaningful.

Wherever you find yourself, go with an open heart.

I like to go to a few pilgrim masses along the way, even though I am not Catholic. And I always appreciate the Pilgrims’ Mass in Santiago.

I love reading the traditional pilgrim blessing out loud in the mornings before we walk.

There are lots of simple ways to create space for meaning on the Camino.

I’ve walked with a fellow pilgrim who chose to be silent in the mornings, to let the trail be her companion and to give herself the gift of meeting each day without having to talk. Another pilgrim who is Catholic wanted to find a mass every evening before dinner if possible, marking the end of her day with the routine of communion. Once on Sunday, when it was snowing on the Camino and we were freezing, a group of us decided to stop for mass mid-morning, as much in the hope of waiting out the weather as out of a desire to go to Mass. The tiny service ended up being one of the best gifts of that Camino.

I love these words that were written by a fellow pilgrim about how our bodies become prayers while we are walking. These were written by Margaret Hebblethwaite on walking St Cuthbert’s Way:

I see a pilgrimage as a way of turning my body into a prayer. Most of us do not pray well enough or often enough, but on pilgrimage I do not have to do anything clever with my mind: I just reach towards God with my body in a way that is both difficult and simple. It is difficult because I get blisters and sunburn and aching limbs, but the spiritual uplift comes because of the physical effort, not despite it. It is simple because all I have to do is put one foot in front of the other and go on doing that all day. That action is a prayer because it is a striving towards God, a movement towards a place made holy by the influence of others – the saint who is the inspiration of the pilgrimage, and the many good people who have gone there before me, seeking God.

I love to remember that so many good people have gone before me on these paths and to think of my own body as striving towards God as I take each step. There’s nothing else I have to do today but walk.

Do you have any other important Camino advice?

For all Camino planning, the best advice I can give you is to do your best to ‘know thyself’ ahead of time and then to make the best of what you end up planning. 

A couple of examples:

Luggage Transfer vs Carrying Everything: You probably know if you’re going to find carrying a full backpack for 10+ miles in the sun to be an exciting challenge or a total bummer. If it’s the latter, book the luggage transfer. But if you want to carry everything and then you arrive and are discouraged that you’ve chosen that for yourself, there is always the option to ship your pack forward tomorrow.

Communal Hostels vs B&Bs/Hotels: Are you introverted or extroverted? Do you want to talk to people all day on the trail and then be by yourself in the evenings or vice versa? Are you ok to eat by yourself or would you rather have other folks around? Book what you think you will enjoy and then make the best of what you’ve booked. If you need to cancel something because you find yourself wanting more private rooms and or more community, that’s ok!

Mainly, just get your plane tickets ASAP and everything else will fall into place. You’re going to have a great time no matter what! Enjoy the journey!!!

Once you decide to go on a Camino,

You have already begun your ancient pilgrimage.

By committing to this walk,

You have started your journey.

In fact, every step you take to prepare to walk the Camino is actually part of your Way.

I hope that excites you as much as it does me.

The first step on any epic journey is the one you take out your front door.

In Norway, they call it the “doorstep mile.”

And every time you walk out your front door to go for a walk, you are taking the hardest step there is.

The beginning.

Once you’ve begun a journey, everything else is just an obstacle to be faced along the way.

But since you’re already on The Way, you have everything you need with you in order to face whatever comes.

Whatever is waiting for you around the next bend in the path is just something to walk through.

So consider that all the other things you need to figure out are just the next steps on your path!

Buen Camino!!

XO
Alison

PS. The Camino is one of my favorite topics of conversation, so please do ask any questions you have in the comments and I will do my very best to answer them. I have written loads about the Camino on this blog. Lots of stories, but also maybe some helpful details there.

PPS. Also, this online Camino Forum is a wealth of information. You can search old threads (most of the questions you have thought of have been asked), but also folks are super generous to answer questions for new pilgrims who are starting out. The Buen Camino app has lots of info, both for on the go and for planning ahead of time. 

PPPS. Most years, I take a small group of 6-8 gals on the Camino. If you would like to walk with our camaraderie in 2027, please get in touch. (alison AT alison chino DOT com)

The post How To Plan A Camino appeared first on Alison Chino.

It’s been exactly 10 years since I first visited the Scottish Isle of Skye.

We took the kids camping there for an autumn school holiday (also known as Tattie Holidays). It was the last year we still had four kids under our roof and I was determined to make the most of every family holiday we had together. We explored the Isle of Skye from top to bottom and east to west. We camped near the Cuillin Hills at night and visited the Fairy Pools, Talisker, the Old Man of Storr, and Neist Point Lighthouse on the far western shore of the island. Our favorite hike was the often photographed Quiraing.

Last summer we returned to the Isle of Skye with a group of friends and stayed in some of the many glamping cabins that have popped up on the isle since we lived in Scotland.

I had been warned by folks from Aberdeen that the island is somewhat overrun these days and we would struggle to find parking for our day hikes. It was much busier than I remembered it, but it wasn’t unbearable.

Taido and I gave early wake up calls so we started hiking before the masses on the days where we were headed to the overly instagrammed, honey pot areas. (I’m looking at you, Fairy Pools.)

But also, I spent time researching less popular hikes. In case we were overwhelmed by the crowds, I wanted to have at least one hike where we experienced the Isle of Skye as I remembered it on my first visit: a wild place full of remote hiking trails that you have all to yourself.

I recalled Skye as an island where you can hike for hours and only meet one or two other people on the way.

And I am happy to say that I found a part of Skye that still felt like the place in my memory.

Oronsay.

While part of our group went off to tour the Talisker Whisky Distillery, the rest of us headed to hike this new-to-me walk that crosses a tidal causeway from the small settlement of Ullinish to Oronsay Island.

I had been watching the tide times, because the causeway out to Oronsay is covered in water during high tide, but the stars aligned and we managed to get out there at just the right time.

For our whole week in Scotland, we had a mix of sun, fog, rain and mist each day. Almost all my pictures are full of moody clouds and brightly colored raincoats dotting the trails.

Unsurprisingly, we experienced a lot of the classic Scottish weather on our trip.

I expect fog and rain in Scotland, and indeed, in the UK. I think it’s part of what makes the blue skies feel so special.

We had already been hiking in the rain on this very day, but in the afternoon across the causeway on Oronsay Island, the sky cleared a bit and we had sunshine on our faces as we wandered the short three mile loop to Oronsay and back.

We stripped out of our jackets and down to our t-shirts for what I think was the only time all week.

From the cliff tops on Oronsay, you can see far out southwest into the inner seas of the Scottish Isles.

When we reached the highest point, we sat there in the grass for as long as we dared, just watching the water and the clouds.

But as the tide was on its way in, we soon headed back to cross the causeway while it was it was still uncovered by water.

On the walk back we stopped for a quick dip just off of the pebble causeway, our only swim all week, so I was so glad I jumped at the chance.

When we got back to our car, we drove to meet the rest of the group at Neist Point, where we hiked out to the lighthouse. The sun was long gone by then, but we still enjoyed our third short hike of the day, and we all had hardy appetites after our full day on the Isle of Skye, which was good because we ended the day with the 8-course chef’s choice meal at the Kitchen Table in The Three Chimneys. A Very Special Treat.

But I have to say, even with the gorgeous meal and several more stunning Scotland hikes in the days following, the hidden gem of Oronsay Island ended up being my favorite part of last summer’s trip to Scotland and a little reminder to me to always look for some new treasure at the edges of my trail maps.

You can find this trail on Alltrails if you’re looking to do it yourself. If you find yourself on the Isle of Skye, I highly recommend you check out Oronsay.

The post Oronsay: A Quiet Corner of the Isle of Skye (and my favorite hike + swim day) appeared first on Alison Chino.

15 miles 

1388 feet of elevation 

We woke up early and SO well rested at the West Highland Lodge. And it was cold outside! Our first truly cold day! Honestly, today we had the Scottish weather I had prepared us for!

We made coffee and tea in the kitchen and took it back to our rooms. 

I always love staying in a hostel along a hike because you get the hiking camaraderie. You have chats around the kettle in the morning about what the day holds and which body parts are aching. 

But it’s nice to have your own room in a hostel so you can spread out and drink your coffee in your underwear if you want. 

I felt like we took our time getting ready but we still headed out on the trail by 7:45am. 

We were going to stop in town for breakfast but the place that was open and sounded good (Leven Bakes) was only a takeaway spot, so we marched on as we all had TONS of food in our bags. There is kind of a scarcity of shops along some spots on the West Highland Way so we kept hoarding and buying food like little squirrels saving for winter. Our backpacks were so heavy with snacks that we said we’d stop every hour for a quick snack on our last day! 

Additionally, because of the change in the weather, we were also carrying hats, gloves, extra layers and all the rain gear. We were loaded down! 

I was honestly glad to get going so early because we had so far to go and heavy rain was meant to blow in at 4pm. With 15 miles ahead of us, I felt like we’d be lucky to reach Fort William by the time the steady rain started.  

So we walked through Kinlochleven one last time, crossed the river and headed up into the woods. 

It’s a decently steady climb out of Fort William. 

We’d put on warm hats/buffs and gloves as we walked through town, but we started shedding layers soon. In the trees we were out of the wind and so we encountered some little midge spots that had managed to survive the cold night. They really weren’t bad but we had midge PTSD from yesterday so we didn’t stop until we got out of the trees and into the wind again. 

Most of this section of the West Highland Way is very exposed, so once we got up and into the wind, we were in it for most of the day. 

It took us about an hour to get to the top of the main climb from Kinlochleven and then the trail widens and levels out a bit. 

It’s such a beautiful stretch. Honestly it’s hard to choose my favorite scenery day on the trail, but maybe because it was our last day and I was starting to feel sad that it was almost over that this day seemed especially gorgeous. 

This stretch is what Scotland looks like to me when I close my eyes and remember our years of hiking and living here. 

The wind was cold so all the layers soon came back out. Earlier in the week we had laughed about the fact that we had warm hats and gloves in our packs, but today we finally used them. And we were glad to have them. 

When your hands are exposed because you’re using trekking poles, you really need your gloves on a windy day. You can’t just pop your hands in your pockets to get warm. 

We found little bends in the hills to tuck ourselves into for snack breaks. We stopped at 9:15 for our first snack and the sun even came out for a minute.

Who wants a piece of shortbread? Anyone want some peanuts? A piece of an orange? 

We were aggressively marketing our snacks to each other. 

I had introduced the gals to Hob Nobs, my favorite British tea biscuit, so we were working our way through Patti’s sleeve of them. And Rhonda even had a package of peanut butter crackers she’d been carrying since she left Little Rock. 

We got moving again, taking photos of the mountain ranges shepherding us along and old stone ruins of a time long ago. 

We felt our first drops of rain at 10:20, much earlier than expected. I tried to ignore them at first. Sometimes it’s just a passing mist. But it wouldn’t be ignored so we stopped and put on raincoats and pack covers. We decided we’d wait for it to get heavier before donning rain trousers. 

Patti has a pink poncho instead of a raincoat and pack cover so you can always tell if it was raining when you look at photos because even from far away, she’s easily spotted. We joked that we should have kept a count of how many times someone made a comment to Patti about the bright color of her poncho. People could not help but comment. 

Well your friends certainly aren’t going to lose you! 

The rain actually didn’t last very long, but the raincoats helped with the wind anyway so we left them on until elevensies, when we pulled them off to sit on the ground and have another snack. 

Then the rain came again around noon and was off and on all day. It was a light drizzle except for one ten minute stretch of heavy rain around 2pm. 

We managed to have our lunch stop out of the rain sometime around 1 after the lower half of Ben Nevis had finally come into view. We had 7 miles left to go. 

There’s a final climb that winds up the trail to a gravel road that you walk all the way down into the valley and I was hoping to be over that last climb before the rain. We got there at about 2:30pm so I was thrilled. 

Home stretch gals! 

We descended into Fort William under the shadow of Ben Nevis which looked ominous under the dark sky. (The girls are hoping to climb it later in the week so I’m hoping they get a better weather day!)

The descent was long, around 2 miles, but it’s a wide gravel service road, a reasonable grade for our tired legs. 

Then the last two miles to the end is a march on the road, always a bit jarring after miles and miles of being in the wild. 

The rain had stopped and we’d warmed up once out of the wind, so we had stripped everything off again. Then about a mile from the end, it started raining hard again so we stopped under a bus shelter and put everything back on. Of course. It was fitting, we said, to begin and end our walk in the rain. 

We finally reached the end at 3:30pm. I was so proud. I asked two young Dutch guys who were also finishing to take our photo and then we took theirs and exchanged stories for just a minute before we wished them a good trip home and headed into the pub across the street to eat. 

Rhonda had said 3 miles ago that she was hungry for something besides a Doo Dad. (She meant a Hob Nob lol). 

We plopped ourselves down in the Ben Nevis pub for a big celebration meal. I had to refrain from taking off my boots and lying down across the chairs. I was surprised by how chilled I was, as I’d felt hot while walking, but I immediately started to get chilled when we stopped. I ordered only hot things. Soup and tea. It tasted amazing. 

After lunch we went and checked into our hotel, maybe our nicest stay of our whole trip, and mercifully, a two minute walk from the pub. 

After hot showers and a couple of hours of rest, we headed back out to the pub for a celebration drink. 

The pub was jam slammed, so we decided to beg a couple of guys to let us join them at their table. They were so gracious, not only did they let us squeeze in but they bought our celebration drinks in congratulations for our finishing the trail. They were over from the Netherlands and planning to climb Ben Nevis tomorrow. The weather looks a bit iffy but I hope it clears for them and they can make it to the top. They flew over especially just to make the climb. 

We had a great time chatting to them and when they left to go have dinner, we had one more drink and then headed off to bed. 

It’s 9pm but it feels like midnight. 

I can’t quite believe I’m not getting up and walking tomorrow. My train leaves in the morning but we’ll have one last breakfast together before I go.

Maybe on the train home, I’ll write down all the things I would have done differently just in case you are reading this and thinking about making the trek yourself. 

It’s a pretty incredible way to spend 8 days or so. Midges, rain and all. 

I’m super grateful to Patti and Rhonda for being willing to come share this adventure with me!!!

The post West Highland Way Day 8 appeared first on Alison Chino.

10 miles

1624 ft

Did I say yesterday that we’d perhaps begun to get a little overconfident about finishing our last couple of days on the West Highland Way? 

Maybe it was that I thought we’d mostly faced the variety of challenges that might arise on our hike that I wasn’t too worried about what was to come. Surely in the last couple days, we might just encounter more of the same challenges we had already faced.

But a couple of new challenges made today, if not our hardest day, at the very least, our most interesting.

To start, no one woke up very rested in our microlodge. When the light came through the window into the cabin, Patti said she’d never in her life been so glad to see the end of a night and I had to agree with her. In addition to the obviously uncomfortable pencil thin mattresses and lack of pillows on our bunks, the cabin was overly stuffy and hot. But we couldn’t open the door overnight because of the midges. 

The midge, or noseeum as we call them in Arkansas, is infamous on the West Highland Way. Anytime you tell someone in Scotland that you’re going hiking in the summer, they will tell you to be aware of the midges. 

In warm, still air, these swarming, tiny black flies are a plague to hikers and campers.

I have experienced them before in several years of hiking in Scotland. Or shall we say more accurately, I thought I had experienced them before.

Last July, Taido and I brought a group to the Isle of Skye and we had midges outside our little cabins in the evenings. When we lived in Scotland, I can remember hikes in the summer when we would sit down to eat lunch and then have to pack up and move on because we had stopped in a spot full of ‘midgies.’

But in all my previous experiences with the midge, we could spray some big spray or move on down the trail a little ways and get away from them. I experienced spots where the midges were bad. 

Here on the West Highland Way, on some of our snack breaks, we’ve had a few biting midges, especially near Loch Lomond in places where the air was still. But we were able to move on from them and find places to stop where they weren’t bothering us. 

Well apparently (and somewhat miraculously, I suppose) in all my previous acquaintance with Mr. Midge, I hadn’t truly encountered the midges about which I’ve been warned. 

Because the plague of midges that arrived the day after the most unusually warm day that Scotland has had all summer wasn’t just right outside our cabin. They had settled into the entire valley and were waiting to devour us. 

I was hoping that as soon as we got away from our cabin, they would improve. My first clue that the midges weren’t only outside our little hut was when our friend from Germany said she had never set her tent up so fast before because of the midges. She described them as a black fur covering her whole body, which gives me the willies even as I type it. 

Breakfast doesn’t begin until 8am at the Glencoe Mountain Resort, but by 7, we couldn’t stand to be in our cabin another minute. I had already tried to take a cup of coffee outside to enjoy the morning air but was attacked immediately and had to go back into the stiflingly hot hut. 

We were just under two miles from the Kingshouse Hotel. We decided to take our chances that we’d be able to have breakfast there. So we packed up quickly, coated ourselves in repellent and made for hotel. 

Here’s the thing about midges. If there is any wind at all, they disappear, and there was absolutely no wind this morning. The clouds had covered the sky overnight but they were just sitting still. 

When there is no wind, you can sometimes get away from the midges by creating your own wind with movement, by walking very fast. 

I marched us as quickly as possible down the road to the Kingshouse Hotel, where we discovered mercifully that they will sell campers breakfast for 10 pounds. It was such a relief to get out of the midges for a minute. We all filled up on eggs and toast, porridge and coffee. We watched others wander inside, clearly chased in by the bugs. There’s no way you’d try to cook your own breakfast in a camp outside in that mess. Your food would be covered. 

The Kingshouse Hotel sits nestled down in the valley, so again, I was very hopeful that we could quickly get ourselves out of the cesspool of midges and then enjoy our day of slowly meandering the rest of our ten miles into Kinlochleven.

After all, there was no rain. It wasn’t cold. And the scenery was incredible. We were walking in Glencoe for crying out loud. We needed to enjoy it. 

From the hotel, I began to lead us in what could only be described as a death march away from the midges.

I walked so fast that they stopped bothering me, but if I stopped to check if the gals were behind me or to snap a photo, I’d get covered up, so I marched on. 

My first clue that the combination of midges and a sleepless night might be making me a little snippy (an understatement) is when I tried to overtake a tourist in front of me who asked me to stop and take her picture. She was driving around and had just stopped her car on the road to walk a little of the trail. I know this because after I snapped her photo, which I thought was very gracious of me under the circumstances, she tried to ask me exactly where the Devil’s Staircase was and how long the path went along the valley before it started to climb up. 

Lord if I know, lady and I’m not pulling out my map now. I’ve already stopped longer than I want to. Can’t you see we are both covered in midges here!??! 

I stepped off the trail to get around her as she was blocking the trail, and left her standing in there trying to decide if she had time to walk all the way to The Devil’s Staircase. 

I thought as I marched on that maybe I needed to keep my mouth closed this morning for more reasons than just to keep the midges from flying in. 

Finally, maybe about a mile later, the path started to curve up to the right and away from the road. The trail was rocky, but dry, so I still marched quickly as, disappointingly, the midges did not disappear as we climbed. If anything, they were even more drawn to us as we sweated up the mountain. My glasses were fogging up from the heat coming off of me, but still I marched on. I glanced back around every bend making sure Rhonda and Patti were still coming but I could not stop to wait on them without getting covered up. 

About halfway up, I passed a few hikers coming from the other direction and said quickly as I passed:

Please tell me it gets better on the other side of this hill. 

Unfortunately not. 

Their reply totally deflated me. We were all hoping a big gust of wind would hit us once we climbed all the way out of the valley.

Surely getting up higher was going to provide relief from the bugs and the muggy weather. 

Nope.

I began to worry that we couldn’t keep up our pace much longer. And at the rate we were going, we’d be in Kinlochleven well before noon. It was Sunday so who even knows what would be open and we couldn’t check into the West Highland Lodge until 3pm. 

Those are problems for future me, I thought. In this moment all I can do is keep going, keep pushing up this hill. 

The top of the Devil’s Staircase, which is really just a series of switchbacks, is the highest point on the West Highland Way clocking in at 1850 feet. 

We quickly reached the top, but there was no real stopping to take it all in as the midges were still swarming. As I looked into the valley on the other side, the clouds were also sitting there just on that side just as still as can be. Not moving. No air was moving. 

And so onward we marched. 

The path going down was a bit less steep so it was easier to go fast, and since I was expending less energy than when pushing up, I stopped sweating so much that I couldn’t see out of my glasses. A tiny reward for making it up and over the Devil’s Staircase. 

Finally, about 7 miles into our 10 mile hike, a merciful breeze began to blow. The clouds that had been nestled at the bottom of the valley all morning began to move. In less than a minute we were walking in fog. I couldn’t see behind me to make sure the gals were still there, so I stopped to wait and the midges, while still present, were not as relentless.

Thank you Lord. 

I was able to wait until Patti and Rhonda appeared behind me, all of us laughing with delight, before I felt bites again. The back of Rhonda’s neck was covered in little black dots from swatting midges that were attracted to her sweat. 

The wind continued to pick up and we could slow down a little bit without the fear of being eaten alive. Thank goodness. The temperature is supposed to drop significantly tomorrow so I guess that cool front was finally beginning to blow in. 

We were all tired before we started this morning, and then we’d pulled out get-up-and-go we didn’t know we had in order to run away from the midges all morning. So it was with much relief that we slowed to a normal walking pace for the last three miles into town. 

We entered a wood just before the town and the midges seemed to be even less present, more like the midge level we had lived with already on the earlier days of the trail, manageable.

We walked into town at 12:30pm.

We went to see if we could check in early, just for kicks and because we were desperate for showers. Of course we were too early but maaaaaybe we could get in by 2:30. So we found a pub that opened at 1. While we waited for it to open we went to the grocery store across the street and grabbed some fruit And snacks for later. We were the first ones in the door at the pub where we collapsed on the couches and ordered cold drinks. 

In the bathroom we washed our faces and tried to spot clean up the best we could until we could shower. I was pulling bugs out of my hair and out from behind my ears. It was disgusting. 

After we caught our breath, we ordered sandwiches and were able to actually talk. I apologized for marching the girls so hard all morning and they were like, what else could we do? 

Also I apologized for vastly underestimating how bad the midges could be. Lots of people buy and wear mosquito nets, although we mostly have only seen people wearing them who are camping, so they can fix their food outside of their tents. None of us had felt the need for a net and honestly they have always seemed a little silly to me. 

Never in all three years of living and hiking in Scotland have I ever experienced midges that bad for that long on a trail. I feel I have finally been initiated and I understand the warnings. 

At 2:15, I left Rhonda and Patti in the pub to check and see if we could please please get in to shower. We were staying at the West Highland Lodge which is the overflow hostel for Blackwater Campground and Hostel, which you pass as you are walking into town. Because the two properties are run together, you check in to West Highland Lodge at Blackwater.

When I walked back to Backwater and the host said we could check in, it was as if she gave me the keys to the kingdom of heaven. I ran back to the pub waving the keys in the air. 

We’re in!

15 minutes later, after we huffed and puffed up the hill to our hostel, because of course it’s above town, we stripped off all our buggy clothes and ran for the showers. They were the best showers in the whole wide world.

And our 4-bunk room is the best room in the whole wide world. It has a window that opens with a screen over it. We flung it open and let that breeze blow in. We have pillows! And mattresses! We can breathe!

I washed out my buggy clothes and hung them on the clothesline outside where the wind was now blowing so hard that there was not a sign of a midge. I sat down at a picnic table outside to drink the water I carried but didn’t drink on the trail and wondered if I had dreamed the whole thing up. 

How could I possibly be enjoying being outside again so soon? Nothing was biting me. And there was no evidence on my skin that anything had bit me. The midge bites don’t really leave marks or itch later, at least not for me. In fact, the biting isn’t the worst of the midge swarm. The worst is the way they are in your face and you feel like you can’t see or breathe, which is of course why one might carry a mosquito net.

This morning I was afraid I would never want to be outside in Scotland again and now I was sitting in a quiet courtyard. The sun was even shining. Rhonda and Patti came outside and I read them the description of tomorrow’s trail as they half-listened and half-dozed in the sun. 

Then we went inside and made cups of tea that we drank on big couches in the hostel lounge. (The common areas in this hostel are lovely.)

At 5pm we wandered back into town for an early dinner at The Bothy Bar. (We planned to be asleep by 9.) The gals had pizza and I had a veggie burger and chips. We all shared some of the best onion rings I’ve ever had outside of the South. 

Then we walked back to the pub we’d been in earlier for a nightcap. It was very busy but a group of locals let us share their table. We got to talking to them and of course we told them about our midgy walk. One of them said the weather is going to break tomorrow. It will be much cooler but we will have rain again. They told us about some of their favorite places to visit in the far north of Scotland. 

Rhonda and I had gotten some different whiskies to try and share, and one of the locals left and came back with a dram of something he wanted us to try, a favorite of his. Old Putney 12-year from the very north of Scotland, in Wick, he told us after we had tried it.

It was our favorite of the night and when we look for a bottle to take home or see it on a shelf, it will remind us of the friendly neighborhood pub in Kinlochleven and the way a day can end in delight no matter how it starts.

Or maybe it was so delightful because of how it started. 

The post West Highland Way Day 7 appeared first on Alison Chino.

12 miles

1700 feet of elevation

Any day that starts with coffee in a comfy bed staring out the window at the mountains is a dream day in my book. 

Then later in the dining room at the Bridge of Orchy Hotel, the host gave us a table in front of a wide set of bay windows overlooking the mountains. I had porridge and eggs with spinach. 

We set out around 9am from the hotel, crossing the bridge and heading up into the hills.

For a mile and a half, we followed a steady, smooth incline. For the third day in a row, the sun was shining on us. (I said I’d ordered up the weather and the scenery for my birthday!) What a wild and wonderful gift! 

We reached the top of the first hill marked by a cairn and took in the views. We could see our path snaking through the glen. 

Lots of weekend hikers and campers were out enjoying the finest weather the Highlands have seen all summer long. We’ve been told multiple times that it’s been the wettest summer on record for 100 years. Again drawing attention to what a mercy it is to have three dry days in a row!

The path we walked today is an old drover’s road, which was cut through the moors and the hills to make a level path for caravan wagons and cattle. 

Now it’s maintained for West Highland Way hikers providing gradual ascents and descents. The level trails made the elevation gains and losses seem so much easier.

There’s an Irish walking blessing that you come across a lot on the Camino and somewhere in the middle of it is the phrase, May the road rise to meet you. 

The paths we’ve walked over the last few days truly feel like the road rising to meet us. 

We stopped for a snack on one of several stone bridges after we’d passed the five mile mark. We greeted a steady stream of hikers passing by.

Just a few miles later we stopped again for our lunch on a grassy view point. I had told the gals that we didn’t need to be in a hurry today because no luxurious rooms awaited us. So I even took off my boots and stretched out on the grass in the sun, thinking that there’s really nowhere else I’d rather be on my birthday than on a walking trail with friends. It is my favorite. 

Even taking our sweet time we managed to reach the Glencoe Mountain Resort before 3. Resort is a bit of a stretch. It’s a ski area that has one of its chairlifts open for the summer.

We sat on the ski deck with a cold drink and watched mountain bikers and paragliders making use of the lift. 

After we checked into our hut we rode the chairlift up just before it closed and watched paragliders taking off from the top. The sky just above us seemed to fill with them all at once and then they spread out far.

As we rode back down we could see so far across the valley and hills. It was a fun way to end the day. 

We ordered dinner at the little cafe at the bottom. I had a baked potato with cheese. Then we took our drinks back to our little camp spot. 

Our little hut is called a microlodge plus. It’s a six bunk camp cabin in a long row of cabins at the edge of a parking lot. (The sixth bed is a pull out from the bottom right bed.) We threw our rented sleeping bags on the beds and headed for the coin-operated showers (1 pound for 5 minutes).

After we hit the showers, we put on our semi-clean night clothes and sat outside at the picnic table in front of our cabin watching the parking lot empty out. Munro climbers and mountain bikers came down the hill, packed up their gear and drove away. A few caravans and camper vans arrived. (You can park here for the night for 5 pounds.)

The sun went down over the mountains and we started to get cold so we moved inside and put on some face masks my friend Diane had sent over for my birthday. We laughed so hard at how crazy we looked. Also our cabin bedding this time came with no pillows so we were all trying to make pillows out of whatever we had. Rhonda and Patti used their packing cubes and I used a dry bag stuffed with clothes. We got so tickled that we had to another trip to the bathroom. 

Then the sky turned dark and the stars came out. I think they are even brighter than they were the last couple of nights. And our view over this massive parking lot is wider. Just gorgeous. 

I would never have thought to ask for a 6th grade camp cabin bunkin’ party on the edge of a ski resort parking lot for my 51st birthday, but what a delight it has been.

Our giggles finally subsided and the gals are now snoring in their bunks, resting up for tomorrow when we climb something called The Devil’s Staircase. We may be getting a little cocky because we’re not too worried about whatever tomorrow is going to throw at us. We only have two days and 25 miles left. 

And we know how to shower in under  5 minutes.  

Bring it on, West Highland Way. 

The post West Highland Way Day 6 appeared first on Alison Chino.

7 miles

383 ft of elevation

I was determined to stay in these little Hobbit huts on this trip as they are adorable and cozy.

And I would 100% stay in them again. (We are staying in something similar again in a couple of nights.) But it is noteworthy that the huts are part of a campground, so I got to make several night walks through the campground to the shower and bathroom block in the center.

It was cloudy the first two times I made the trip, but on my 4am loo visit, the sky had cleared and the stars were out. It’s been a hot minute since I could see so many stars at night in the UK, and I had to stop and stare for a while, until I was too chilly to be outside anymore.

I haven’t done much camping lately and I miss it. Well, I miss parts of it. I miss being around a campfire and seeing the stars and living outside. 

I think that the little huts in the campgrounds you find along the West Highland Way are a great compromise to camping. If I did it again, I think I’d pack a sleeping bag and stay in more of them. (We are renting sleeping bags on the couple of nights we’re doing it this time.)

I also enjoyed getting to chat to the campers. There are so many folks carrying all their gear and camping on this trail, most of them a good bit younger than us. But we enjoy cheering them on when they pass us (with packs three times the size of ours) and hearing where they set up their tent and how they weathered the rain. So it was fun to be at the campground with lots of them for the night.

Our favorite camper is the gal we met from Germany on the first day and she was in the same campground as us, so we got to walk part of the day with her today.

She was still asleep when we went to breakfast at 7:30am in town at The Real Food Cafe. We sat in the little dining room because we weren’t in any hurry to get going. We all three ate porridge with seeds, nuts and honey for breakfast. A welcome change.

When we got back to camp, most everyone had packed up and gone but our sweet friend was still getting ready. I stopped and got her number because I told her she’d probably get ahead of us today so I wasn’t sure we’d see her again. Most everyone else is going on a good bit further than 7 miles.

We headed out before her but even with a huge pack, she caught us later and hiked with us a good bit of the way to Bridge of Orchy.

We were taking it slow today as we didn’t want to arrive at the hotel too much before our check-in time.

Plus we just wanted to soak in the sunshine and not be in a hurry. After all, this was our rest day.

We stopped at an inviting stream for second breakfast.

We paused for any photos we wanted to take or to look up the name of a mountain we were walking along (Ben Dorain) or to watch a train go by.

We stopped and talked to an 80 year old man who was hiking this trail for the 5th time. (My hat is off to you sir!)

The only task was to enjoy the day. Which is pretty easy to do when the path is a gentle 7 miles in the sun. It was another day where our rain gear stayed in the bottom of the packs.

We arrived at the happily-situated Bridge of Orchy Hotel shortly after noon. We sat down and had a drink with our friend.

We compared trail notes and laughed in the sun. We sat there so long that we decided to order lunch. It was a luxuriously slow afternoon!

Finally at 2, our friend decided she needed to push on. I walked her to the bridge and wished her well for the 12 more miles she had left!

Then I went down to the river, took off my boots and had a good long soak. I can’t actually believe it was warm and sunny enough in Scotland to be soaking in a river. I saw a whole family strip down to their underwear and get all the way in for a swim! What a day!

After a while I went and got showered and settled at the hotel. We washed clothes and set them in the sun to dry. I had a wee nap! Ate a plate of vegan haggis, neeps and tatties for dinner. And sticky toffee pudding of course. Tomorrow is my birthday so we called tonight’s gorgeous meal my birthday dinner and the waiter brought us wee proseccos on the house. So much fun!

Our German friend texted sometime around 7pm that she had made it and that it was the most beautiful stretch of the hike so far. We’ve been told something similar multiple times now by locals, so I’m so excited to get out there and see it!

I think it’s a clear night so I’ll just peek outside and check on the stars before bed.

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