The West Highland Way Day 7: Kinlochleven to Fort William
Sun 30 Jul 2023
Kinlochleven to Fort William
Estimated hiking time 7h
24.2 km | 15 miles (Our actual: 29.1 km / 18.1 miles)
Ascent: 504 m | 1,653.5 ft
Descent: 509 m | 1,669.9 ft
Our final day on The Way and it was glorious. The 2nd longest day for distance and we were blessed with beautiful weather. The conditions under foot were very kind, another thing to be grateful for. Walking through the town of Kinlochleven on our way to the trail and the start of our hike…we were curious about these neighbors and exactly what they think of each other’s yards.
The trail starts with a fairly steep 1 hour climb out of town (984 ft / 300 meters) which was thoroughly enjoyable and offered a great view looking back down at Loch Leven and Kinlochleven, the town we just left.
The rest of the day was really quite mellow. Stunning scenery the entire way. There were no places to have a break and top-up so we needed to carry everything with us. We ended up literally walking the entire time, never sitting down for a break once. “Just keep walking, just keep walking” seemed to be our motto today, and the walking was good!!
There was so much water today. Sometimes our trail looked like a shallow stream, and we crossed over so many streams of water coming from waterfalls off the top of the mountains. Water everywhere!
Coming into the final portion, we descended into Fort William via Glen Nevis with Ben Nevis (the tallest mountain in Great Britain) on our right-hand side. The only part that was a bit of a slog was coming into town on the rock embedded pavement and then on the sidewalk…it went on for what felt like forever. Once at the bottom we walked through a lovely forrest, next to a small lake, and had a moment with the trees! We were feeling grateful knowing this was our last hike through nature on the Way.
Entering Fort William, we walked on a lovely pedestrian street through the center of town to the official end of the West Highland Way, the “Sore Feet Statue” in Gordon Square. We stopped and took our celebratory picture with our own sore feet to show for it. Then we continued walking to our gorgeous guest house with views of the water. This entire trip unfolded as a series of miracles, and we recognize just how blessed and lucky we are to have had this most exceptional adventure!!
