(Water) falling in love with Fort William

I woke up this morning without a clue as to what I was going to do with my day. Did I want to walk around and shop a bit? Not really. I can shop anywhere! Besides, almost all of the stores are either selling cheesy souvenirs or hiking gear. Why hiking gear, you might ask? Well, this town is particularly famous for having the tallest mountain in the UK named Ben Nevis. This means that most tourists are here for one reason: to summit the famous mountain. After making my way to the top of Arthur’s Seat on Sunday, I was feeling a bit ambitious. Could I hike to the top of Ben Nevis by myself? I did a quick Google search to find out that…

1. it would take me approximately 9 hours round trip
2. the weather changes rather quickly at the top of the mountain

I decided that summiting Ben Nevis would have to be an adventure for a later date. Perhaps I will find a group of friends to go with me sometime this semester?

Just because I decided not to hike up Ben Nevis does NOT mean that I did not go for a loooooong hike today…

In addition to Ben Nevis, there is another famous geographical site near Fort William called Steall Falls: the waterfall that appears in the Harry Potter and the Goblet of Fire movie!

I took the N42 bus from the Fort William bus station to the Lower Falls car park. On the way, the bus had to stop several times for sheep walking down the middle of the road! I was entertained. This was exactly what I had imagined road travel in Scotland to be like.

In just twenty minutes, I was dropped off in the middle of nowhere with no map, no cell service, and no idea where I was going. Thankfully, there was a heavily traveled (and very muddy) path for me to follow!

The first part of the hike was very easy, as the path was in a wide open area with no elevation. I gazed with awe at the mountains and deep gorge beside me. It was truly beautiful!

As I kept going, the path got increasingly more difficult to follow. There were some rocky areas and a few moments where I had to tell myself “just don’t look down”. It’s a good thing I wore my hiking boots because the rocks were slick, and I would have fallen right off the mountain if I slipped! It was quite the adventure.

After climbing up and over a small mountain, I finally made it to a spot that I recognized from what I had previously read on the internet. I was at the wire bridge!

This part of the hike was simple. All I had to do was grab ahold of the two wires above me, tight-rope walk along the ONE!!!!! wire below me, and try not to fall 10 ft into the shallow, rocky stream below me.

I was not the only one at the bridge. Whew! I could watch someone else do it first.

WRONG
The woman in front of me turned around and said with a smile, “you can go first”.

We laughed, knowing we were both a wee bit nervous.

I stepped onto the wire thinking to myself, “what in the world am I doing”. A man was cheering me on from the bottom saying. “don’t fall in because we don’t have any towels out here”. Thanks, but I think I’m a little less worried about getting wet and a little more worried about breaking my legs :).

Once I was across, I waited for the other woman to cross and cheered her on as she went. We then walked up to the waterfall and took turns taking pictures for each other. She was alone, too. In fact, I learned that she was traveling all over Scotland by herself and camping in a tent for most of her trip! We were having such a fun time talking that we decided to hike the entire way back together. At one point, we stopped to take a few more photos on a ledge that dropped off into the gorge. I laughed and said, “my mom is going to LOVE this”. For reference, my mom tells me very often that I “don’t want to be that one person who dies trying to take a good photo”. She’s right, but I did it anyway.

By the time I made it back to Fort William, I was SO hungry but also covered in mud. I forced myself to shower and change before heading out to the closest pub I could find. There, I had a veggie burger and a beer. Are you surprised?

Well, I’m surprised that I am still awake…

Until next time,

Clara