Slow moving today. Not just walking slow, but every movement is slow. We’ve aged on this trip—6 days and counting and feeling the impact of every second of that time. A trend is developing on this trek; no matter what time we get up, we don’t hit the trail until 10 – 10:30. I had terrible leg cramps over night that almost made me cry. Pam’s compassion showed through…”Would you quit flopping around and lay still? You’re keeping me awake!” I ended up getting up and heading to the laundry to grab our stuff and fold it. I have been stretching every night when we get in the tent but skipped it last night because we were so tired. Lesson learned.
We had a pretty uneventful morning 6 mile walk to Crianlarich. There’s a train station there and some pubs so we decided to take the ½ mile side trip into town for a hot lunch. On the way in, we ran into some guys who had obviously given up and were heading back to Glasgow. We passed one gravity enhanced man sitting in the middle of the trail smoking a cigarette and swearing. At least, I hope this was his last day and not his first or he is really going to have a miserable trip because the next 50 miles are supposed to rougher than the first 50.
We stopped in a grocery store to look around and try to get our bearings on town. The girl behind the counter recommended the Rod & Reel Pub on down the road so we headed that direction. When we went inside, we ran into Dan, Peter, and Marcia just finishing their lunch. We hadn’t seen them for a few days and just assumed they flew on by us. Turns out, they took a day’s side trip to climb Ben Lomond (not to be confused with the guy that owns the manor house across the loch) which allowed us to catch up to them. They were just finishing up so we said our goodbyes and they headed out.
After lunch, as we were threading our way out of town, we noticed our gravity enhanced smoker sitting at the train station with his two buddies—it was kind of quiet.
Our goal was to make it to Tyndrum to camp for the night, but it seemed like the trail was all uphill after lunch. After 3 miles of uneventful uphill, we dropped down into a valley around St Fillian’s Priory with great views of the mountains in all directions. After gazing for a while, we noticed a little cabin area that had a small shop that served treats so we headed in for a coffee and a sweet to build up the energy to walk the final 2 miles to Tyndrum. While we were there, Dan, Peter, and Marcia came in. This was where they were spending the night and they tried to convince us to stay as well. We didn’t have reservations or really want to spend the money for a cabin (wigwam in this case) but we went ahead and enquired about availability. The attendant told us there was only one 4 person wigwam left for the night but if we wanted it, she’d let us have it for the 2 person price. She gave us the key and a map for us to go check it out. All 5 of us went and as soon as we saw the sign on the door we knew we were staying—“Flaming Feet”.
We went back and payed for the wigwam. Marcia bought us a tennis ball (she’s a physical therapist) and told us how to roll our feet. We dropped off our stuff, got organized, made a bed, turned on the heat (yes, heat), and got cleaned up. After we got settled in, we went up to Marcia, Dan, and Peter’s wigwam for some beer and scotch. No hairballs for Pam; beer only. They had a little fire outside and we sat and talked and got to know them better. For UConn alumni, they were ok.
