day 5 scotland trip highland tour

The west highland mountain bike tour is completly off road lasting 50 miles going round Ben nevis, the Mamores mountian range and also the grey corries mountains. Which is a very hilly area, the guide book reccomends doing this in 2 days with a stop at a bothy half way round, i on the otherhand was going to try complete it in 6hours with lunch at the bothy half way round. I set off about 10.30am and jumped on the west highland way at fort william, the fire road climb is long and takes you from sea level to 900 feet the views down to fort william were lovely.

it was at this point i saw a sign saying forest road closed due to tree felling, i carried on regardless and soon was stopped by a guy driving a big monster truck looking machine, so i asked him where the west highland way went. He replied with "its shut, theres a detour sign at the bottom carpark".
Nice one i hadnt even come through the car park. I rode back down the long fire road and found the detour path. Wow this was a climb back up to nearly 900 feet again but this was 1st gear steepness and i even lost traction on one bit and had to push for 10 feet. Once at the top i was next to cow hill which over looks fort william and i knew where i was. I carried on up a country lane to rejoin the westhighland way and carry on over to kinlochleven on a nice solid track with lots of little stream crossings, some which were frozen.

                                                      West highland way
Leaving the west highland way at kinlochleven i made my way up a climb past a hotel and then stalker lodges, the climb was a very loose rocky fireroad and went up for a while to 1300 feet the views down kinlochleven to glencoe were excellent

I went down a decent to arrive at the shores of loch eilde mor a good old landrover track travels along side it and past another small loch till you reach luibeilt bothy

                                                          The old landrover trail

                                                                luibeilt bothy

From here i now had to do a river crossing which all went well apart from the slipping down the bank and dropping my bike in the river at the start. It wasnt to deep and i marched across it quickly slipping on slimey stones on the way. I would think twice about this ride after rainfall as i could see how high the river gets with the tide marks left on the bank. Once across the river i followed a path up the side of a gorge which a stream had created this climb was ride a bit and then push a bit, but most of it was ok to ride, nearing the top i noticed my gps was reading  above 2000 feet, it was at this point when i was at my highest a blizzard hit me, luckly it only lasted a few minutes.

                                                      After a minutes blizzard

I followed the path going up and down for a couple of km until i reach a fire road and went down to another bothy. It was a really nice bothy with bunk beds in, shelfs and windows. i stopped outside and had a energy bar and a drink

From here it was a really fast fire road decent for 7km all the way down to leanachan forest, i past a statue of a monk or something and went into the forest joining up to fire roads where big trees had fallen down and blocked the road. I had to climb with my bike over these and it was alot harder than it sounds. Eventually the fire roads brought me to a fireroad i reconised from the relentless24 mtb course and i was back at the nevis centre in no time. I took the blue route back to the north face carpark in torlundy and crossed the road back to the cabin

                                                       My bike and the statue

                                                       Gpx of the route