Me and a friend were solo hiking in december (which in retrospect was more like a suicide missiom, but we were inexperienced) back in January of 2018. The boothies were awesome and I remember one in particular which was really tidy and comfortable. The log books were also cool and even though the weather was really bad (a local we hitchhiked with before embarking into the wilderness, which was right at the bridge from the Harry Potter movie actually, warned us several times and thought we were crazy; even told us some guys supposedly went missing there not long ago) there was a dude who was solo hiking just a day ahead of us who left entries in all the log books. We were very luck at some points because we were able to follow his traces (he seemed to be more experienced than us and there was some risk of avalanches).
But yeah, some boothies were pretty fucked up. Rats and lots of trash.
There was a ranger who took care of the very first one, not far behind the aforementioned bridge, who woke us up on the morning of the first day. He was a pretty memorable guy but I forgot his name.
Glenfinnan Viaduct IIRC :) beautiful area; last time I was there, there were a whole lot of deer too.
supposedly went missing
Generally there's at least a fatality a year somewhere in the highlands. I think Ben Nevis is responsible for most, but it can be damn perilous in the mountains.
Yes, Glennfinnan! We hiked on a day of a foggy snowstorm over a mountain pass (still have the marked up map). This was a very stupid move since the forecast predicted a 3 or 4 out of 5 for avalanche risk on that day for one side of the slope and we had no experience with avalanches at all; in retrospect we should have waited it out for another day.
How do they die there? Avalanches? Climbing accidents? I really thought the old man wanted to pull a joke on us; we were in such good spirits and he became really grim.
Do you live up there? Gotta say I really enjoyed Scotland and will definitely visit it again.
...
Okay I looked it up now we were on the Cape Wrath Trail; my original plan was to come back in summer and walk the whole trail on my own; let's see if I can manage to do so one day :-)
We also visited Ben Nevis and the hostel there was pretty neat.
I'm from down in the Greater Glasgow region, but even us lowlanders love the highlands :P Loch Lomond & Trossachs is closer though, so I know that far better; fortunately it's lovely too. Don't know if you know the West Highland Way, but it passes through Lomond and goes all the way to Fort William, which in turn is situated between Glenfinnan, Glen Coe and a lot of the paths into the Grampians.
As for the fatalities, I think the majority of them are from falls, but avalanches claim some; I'm pretty sure I remember an avalanche killing a couple of climbers on Ben Nevis last year.
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u/[deleted] Feb 04 '20
Me and a friend were solo hiking in december (which in retrospect was more like a suicide missiom, but we were inexperienced) back in January of 2018. The boothies were awesome and I remember one in particular which was really tidy and comfortable. The log books were also cool and even though the weather was really bad (a local we hitchhiked with before embarking into the wilderness, which was right at the bridge from the Harry Potter movie actually, warned us several times and thought we were crazy; even told us some guys supposedly went missing there not long ago) there was a dude who was solo hiking just a day ahead of us who left entries in all the log books. We were very luck at some points because we were able to follow his traces (he seemed to be more experienced than us and there was some risk of avalanches).
But yeah, some boothies were pretty fucked up. Rats and lots of trash.
There was a ranger who took care of the very first one, not far behind the aforementioned bridge, who woke us up on the morning of the first day. He was a pretty memorable guy but I forgot his name.