Every time I go for a hike with a group of folks I send out a packing list.

People don’t always follow it, but they can’t say I didn’t try to help keep those trail pack weights down once we’re out there hiking.

I love to travel light.

It is freeing on any trip, but especially on one where you are carrying everything with you every day.

Also when you’re moving to a new place every night, it’s so much easier to pack up again every morning if you don’t have much.

I tend to explode when I unpack, so less is always going to be better for me.

Every time I go these days, I weigh everything and try to get it down a little bit more.

For example on a recent trip I didn’t need a sleeping bag liner, and I decided to leave the rain pants and fleece layer at home when I looked at the weather. So my total pack weight with water empty, and wearing trousers, underclothes, base layer, fishing shirt, boots, phone in my pocket and trekking poles in my hands was 10.9 pounds/4.95kg.

That’s a record I think. We’ll see if I can beat it this summer, but I’m hesitant to go to the Alps in any season without my rain pants. Plus for most mountain huts, you need a sleeping bag liner.

Here’s what I bring on a hut-to-hut hike…

Alison’s Hut-to-Hut Packing List

Gear:
24 liter Osprey Sirrus Pack 1.2kg
Water bottle: 32 oz Nalgene. 120g empty/600g full
Sleeping bag liner: 160g

Clothes:
Black Montane Hiking trousers (w/belt) 195g
Black Montane Hiking shorts (sans belt) 110g
Plum sleeveless wooly tank 80g
Short sleeve wool base layer 75g
Long-sleeve wool base layer 175g
Columbia fishing shirt 145g
Fleece zip up mid-layer 239g
Plum Montane Rain Jacket 200g
Gortex Rain pants 230g
Ultralight Down Jacket 110g
2 pairs of underwear 20g each
1 forclaz black tank 75g
1 icebreaker sports bra 30g
2 pairs of Darn Toughs 115g (together)
Leggings 200g
Thin wool gloves 55g
Blue Patagonia beanie hat 36g
Blackberry baseball cap 63g

Shoes:
Hiking boots 1070g
Xeroshoes sandals 240g

Personal Hygiene:
Small fast drying towel 45g
Small bar of soap
Toothbrush and toothpaste tablets
Moisturizer, lip balm, sunscreen, meds, ear plugs
Total weight for toiletries: 400g

Other:
Trekking poles (not pictured)
Backpack rain cover (included in pack weight)
Journal 50g
Pen 8g
Phone 204g
Charger/charging bank/headphones 340g
Passport 36g

Small wallet with credit cards/etc
First aid kit 400g
1 roll KT tape 100g
Headlamp 65g
Picnic silverware kit 30g (Just the spoon 8g)
2 Protein bars 52g each
1 nut butter 32g
1 tube electrolytes 50g
Deck of cards 75g
Small stuff sack 38g
Swimsuit (I use my sports bra and shorts)
Knee brace 20g
Bandana 30g

Backpacks in a mountain hut in the Dolomites

Here are a few more photos of what I’ve packed on trips over the last few years.

Dolomites Summer 2025

Camino del Norte Spring 2025

Via Alpina in Switzerland Summer 2023

Camino Frances Sept 2021

If you’re planning a hiking adventure soon and have questions about packing, hit me up! I LOVE to talk folks into packing less.

Before you know it, you’ll be back at home and wishing for the simple days of living out of a backpack. Embrace the vagabond energy while you can!

The post Hut-to-Hut Packing List appeared first on Alison Chino.

12 miles 

 2500 ft of elevation up and  3000 ft of elevation down

We woke up to sunshine on the last day of our walk on the GR7.

I had originally planned for us to only walk the five miles to Pampaneira. However it seemed like such a shame to not spend the whole day in the sunshine, so I extended the walk to Soportújar. We would go 12 miles instead of only five or six. We couldn’t do two short days in a row!

We fueled up early on this day. Two twin brothers ran the hotel where we were staying. They served us the usual toast with ham, cheese, tomato and olive oil. The bread for this toast was delivered fresh every morning in each place we stayed.

I (per usual) also asked for hard-boiled eggs and we kept our hosts busy with our requests for multiple coffees.

Whenever I would say, does anyone need more coffee?

The answer was always YES.

These brothers were so kind and patient with us!

We finally drank our last sips of coffee and got out of their way.

We descended out of Capileira quickly. It was cold so we were anxious to get into the morning sun.

It’s hard to describe how steep the descent was that morning. We first dropped into the valley, crossed the Poqueira River and had to climb back out.

Then once we got to the other side of the gorge, we went downhill for the rest of the morning.

The day was so beautiful that it made me a little teary. I am always sad when a walk ends, but this week had gone by so fast and this day was so gorgeous, I sort of wanted it to go on forever, a sentiment I would later make me laugh.

The Poqueira Gorge or barranco, as it is called in Spanish, is absolutely stunning. The hills climb steeply up both sides of the river and are covered in olive and almond trees.

When I see terraced farms on steep hillsides, I wonder at humanity. Honestly, how did we ever begin to farm this kind of terrain?

When I got home from this trip I read a book called Driving Over Lemons by Chris Stewart, which is about one family’s experience of moving to this part of the world to work this land. It’s a good read, both for how funny it is and because of the glimpse you get into the world of the folks who still live and work up in these mountains.

It felt like we spent the whole morning losing all the height we had gained throughout the week.

We got down to where we could see Pampaneira, but it was still probably an hour before we made it into the village.

We had a small break when we got down to where we crossed the river again.

I pulled out my fig log and cut off little chunks as treats and hopefully motivation for the final push.

Everyone was hungry and ready for some lunch in town.

Pampaneira isn’t very high on the side of the gorge, but it was still a short climb for us to get into the town.

This village is a popular stop for folks who are visiting Alpujarran pueblos blancos, so it had more people in it than we had seen all week.

I think one of the draws might be the local chocolatier. She certainly got our business.

We had a quick wander about town and a snack in the square. I gave everyone an hour to spend in the village, most of which I spent in the square people-watching. We managed to drop a fairly astonishing amount of money in Pampaneira in one hour. I might have instigated a bit of panic shopping by not giving everyone more time. But sooner than everyone wanted, it was time to push on and continue our hike, with backpacks just a little bit fuller.

Bye Bye Pampaneira! We hope to see you again one day.

We had to drop back to the river and cross it a third time before rising again. Before we left the gorge, we could look back and see both Pampaneira and Bubion in the distance behind us.

The towns got smaller and smaller as we climbed away from them. The trail map for the afternoon looked fairly easy. Instead of climbing up for a long time and descending for a long time, the trail went steadily up and down. It looked like a gentle ramble.

Unfortunately, the steady ups and downs were on a rough trail that wasn’t nearly as traveled as the one we’d been on in the morning. And they were not long drops or climbs but they were steep. So it was a lot of work.

As the afternoon wore on, the sun beat down and it was not long before we grew both tired and hot.

And so I got my wish. This day DID go on forever.

We kept on hiking for hours and hours before we finally arrived in the witch-themed town of Soportújar.

Truly, the town has witches everywhere. I’m not sure why but it’s quite cute. You can even visit Hansel and Gretel’s house. (Not a Spanish fairy tale, but who cares?)

We made a quick effort to see the town before we posted up in the main road and ordered food and drinks like we hadn’t eaten all week.

I remember having the best salad of my life. (I’m sure that how good it tasted had nothing to do with the extra hours of walking in the sun.)

But even though it was a long last day, I was grateful to feel like when we left the GR7, I had given my all.

It always feels good to push hard on the last day. I’m sure my fellow hikers agree, now that it’s behind us. We left the witchy town in a taxi to stay in a town where we could catch a super early bus back to Granada the next morning, where we spent one more day together touring the Alhambra before saying goodbye.

It was a grand adventure, and I’m so grateful to this sweet group for joining me in the Alpujarran hills! Let’s do it again soon y’all!

This is the sixth 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 walks, consider subscribing to get future updates.

The post GR7 in Spain Day 6: Capileira to Soportújar appeared first on Alison Chino.

6 miles 

1500 ft of elevation up and 800 ft of elevation down

We had a slightly later start on Day 5 of the GR7 as we were not trying to cover as many miles.

I had a second loop hike above Capileira in reserve in case we arrived with a lot of steam still in our engines, but after the long slog of Day 4, we were all more than content with a shorter day.

A little rain was predicted in the morning with heavier showers in the afternoon. We hoped to be done hiking for the day before any heavy rain arrived.

It started to sprinkle a bit on us as we left Pitres.

However, as soon as we put on our rain jackets and pack covers, the rain stopped.

We had a steady climb out of Pitres and then a meandering wander on the trail towards Capileira.

Capileira is the highest of three villages in the Poqueira Gorge, the other two are Bubion and Pampaneira. We would descend part of the way into the gorge today to Bubion, then climb to Capileira.

Then on our final day we would hike down the opposite site of the gorge to Pampaneira and on to our final stop on the trail, Soportújar.

When we got to a big rock formation called Peña de Angel, we could see down into the Poqueira Gorge.

It was fun to be able to see our destination so early in the day, especially since we had opted not to carry lunch.

We descended quickly into Bubion and started to look for a food spot.

These three villages are so high that they are consistently colder than the lower villages we’d been through.

But we were grateful that the heavy rains had stayed away.

In town there was not a lot open. The restaurant I had picked out would not be open until 1pm, so we found a coffee shop that was still serving breakfast and just starting to have some lunch on offer. The owner told us there was a vegetable soup on offer, which several of us ordered.

The Spanish tortilla I was hoping to have for lunch was not an option, so I asked if it would be possible to just have hard-boiled eggs.

It’s unusual to have eggs for breakfast in Spain, but I’ve started asking if it’s possible to have hard-boiled eggs. I have found this off-the-menu request to be more likely to be accommodated than if I ask for eggs cooked some other way.

Everyone else said they also wanted an egg. The waiter was a little taken aback when I asked for six hard boiled eggs, but he brought them to me anyway and then was relieved that I was sharing them with friends.

We also had more cafe con leche of course.

We left Bubion happily fueled up for the last mile or so of our hike up to Capileira.

The sun even came out for a little while as we made our way up the hill. Part of the trail had washed out from heavy rains in early March so we walked some on the road. One side of the road had fallen away down the side of the hill, reducing the traffic to one lane.

But we found our way through a small wood and over the road into the next town up.

Even though Treveléz is officially the highest village in the Alpujarras, somehow Capileira feels higher. The views down the gorge make it feel like you are way up high.

And the village feels like a remote, far away place.

I loved all the villages we visited on this walk. They each had their own charm. But I think if I had to choose one as my favorite, it would be Capileira. Maybe it was just that we arrived here earlier in the day and had more time to enjoy it.

Almost as soon as we got into town, it started to rain harder. So we checked into our rooms and then went to find a warm spot to enjoy being out of the weather.

We found a bar around the corner where we posted up for the afternoon playing cards before going back to our rooms for naps before dinner.

Before dinner we did a little shopping in the small village. There were beautiful handmade rugs and baskets for sale along the main street.

At dinner, I asked for salad and was grateful for some lettuce with my other pickled veggies from jars. These veggies are a standard part of mixed salads in Spain, especially at this time of year. Spring had not quite reached these high villages.

The rain was still falling when we walked back to our rooms, but the usual end-of-dinner offerings from random, unmarked jars of spirits kept us warm. Capileira’s offerings came in lemon or coffee flavored. Both were delightful.

Even with the short day, I fell asleep quickly. I slept hard in this sweet village perched high on a hill.

I could not believe we only had one more day of walking! The week had gone by so fast.

This is the fifth 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 walks, consider subscribing to get future updates.

The post GR7 in Spain Day 5: Pitres to Capileira appeared first on Alison Chino.

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.

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. 

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