Hike date = May 26, 2024. We hiked in Glen Lyon the second day of a week of guided hiking in the Glencoe region of the Scottish highlands.

We received some unhappy news to start this day. Two hikers from our Wilds of Assynt group reported in our WhatsApp chat that they’d just tested positive for COVID-19. I had noticed a few people developed dry coughs starting around the middle of the previous week. And I’d just awakened with a bit of a sore throat and ear congestion, so…

…when we went down to breakfast to join our guide and the other couple in our group, I relayed the news. I offered to sit at a separate table. And said I’d definitely wear a mask while we were in close quarters in the van. The other couple looked at each other and confessed that he’d not been feeling great for the past few days, so we jointly agreed there was no need for separate tables.

This is when our guide really started to earn his tip! He adjusted the itinerary for the rest of the week so that we did generally easier hikes/ We also enjoyed extra rest time and time to shop in the nearby villages for tissues, Fisherman’s Friend throat lozenges and echinacea. Side note re: Fisherman’s Friend = I strongly prefer the honey-lemon flavor vs the original version. The new orange-spice looks worth trying, too.

Second side note = the restaurant at The Fortingall was amazing. Not only was every breakfast and supper outstanding, the packed lunches we took hiking were very good, as well. I see from their website now, that the pending sale has gone through. As a result, the hotel and restaurant and closed for refurbishment and upgrading through spring 2025. I hope – for the sake of future guests – that the chef stays on after re-opening.

Getting There

I’m not sure whether we stuck to the original hiking plan for Day 2. What I know for sure is that according to our guide, we did a “proper bog hike.” Not only was the terrain in Glen Lyon naturally boggy once we left the two-lane farm track, but it rained ALL DAY, such that long stretches of the two lanes were FULL of standing water. So it was a full on, Scottish highlands hiking experience!

Our guide told us we’d be hiking up Hill of the Hare in Glen Lyon. Sitting down to write this post, I tried to find a hike of that (or similar) name in Glen Lyon – the longest enclosed glen (ie narrow valley) in Scotland. It runs 55 km (34 miles), from Loch Lyon in the west to the village of Fortingall in the east. Glen Lyon is part of the Loch Rannoch and Glen Lyon National Scenic Area, one of forty such areas of exceptional scenery in Scotland.

I’m sure Hill of the Hare is a translation. So perhaps I’d have had more success if I’d made note of the Scottish or Scottish Gaelic name. But I did not. Fortunately, I did record the track with our GPS, so I have some basic information to incorporate into this post.

We parked at the Innerwick Car Park, a short 17 km (11 mile) drive from our hotel in Fortingall. There’s room for at least 10 cars, a picnic table and no other facilities. When we arrived around 10 am, there were no other vehicles in the parking lot.

Outbound

We felt raindrops when we climbed out of the van. And since the forecast was for rain all day, we used the rear-lift hatch of the van to shelter while we pulled on rain pants/jackets and pulled rain shells over our packs and cameras. Side note: we carry our cameras using Peak Design clips attached to our backpack straps, and a 5 litre dry bag provides another layer of protection for our weather-sealed OM System camera gear.

A gravel Innerwick estate road starts at one corner of the car park. There’s a locked gate to prevent unauthorized vehicle access, with a bypass for hikers. The route begins by skirting a recent clearcut harvest area, bordered by a lone row of cultivated evergreen trees, left, one presumes, to shield the clearcut area from the nearby road.

Less than 30 minutes from the trailhead, we were glad we’d made the decision to start in rain gear. The rain intensified and really didn’t let up for the rest of the hike. We soon learned that one member of the group had an ineffectual rain jacket. Fortunately, it wasn’t too cold, and he had good layers underneath, but he got wet enough by the end of the hike that the next day we went to an outdoor clothing store so he could by a new rain jacket.

The terrain undulated a bit, but was mostly a gentle climb. The road gradually petered out to parallel tracks. In places, the tracks were filled with several cm of standing water. The seemingly drier patch of vegetation between the tracks was so water saturated it wasn’t a better option. Our Gortex-lined hiking boots were soon wet through, but not yet squishy with water. It was apparent this hike wasn’t about the scenery, so much as about having a “proper bog hike” experience! 😉

Shelter!

After about an hour and half, we came upon a bothy. According to our guide, it wasn’t part of the public bothy network in Scotland. It’s a rustic shelter that workers on the Innerwick estate use during inclement weather. But like locations in the public bothy network, it was open and accessible, so we all ducked inside to get out of the rain while we ate our packed lunches.

Sheathed in corrugated metal, it was not weather tight, as one corner of the roof was open to the sky to let in some light. The rustic table and benches were quite wet, so we didn’t even sit down. BUT, it was great not to have rain soaked bread as we ate our sandwiches. 🙂 We deeply appreciated the respite.

Soon we were back out in the downpour, heading to the unnamed high point of Hill of the Hare. The two-laned track simply ended, and then we were hiking across bog. Even though we we’d gained more than 500 meters elevation from the car park, the ground was saturated, there were little streams everywhere, and several tarns to skirt.

By the time we reached the high point, my feet were truly wet – despite wearing Gortex-lined hiking boots! I even reapplied waterproofing to the outside of my boots before we left Canada. Everyone in our group, with the exception of our guide, had wet feet by the time we got back to the car park. Thank goodness for towel warmers, which work well as boot drying racks!

Anyhow, we were all very happy to reach our turnaround point!

Return

We didn’t hang about at the “summit” because there was nothing to see but low lying clouds! Our return was more of the same – steady rain and doing our best to avoid stepping in deep standing water.

Mr GeoK and I paused long enough for a small photographic study of one of the tarns. It was distinctive because of its black sand “beach.”

It was a challenge to keep our lenses free of water droplets. For example, here’s a pair of images taken at the same spot just seconds apart – one with a clear lens, the other with MANY water droplets!!

The rain let up a bit by the time we reached a point of historical and cultural significance that’d we’d not noticed on the hike up: ruins of shielings. A shieling is a hut on seasonal pasture high in the hills, once common in the wild and sparsely populated Scottish Highlands. They were usually rectangular, with a doorway on the south side, often constructed of dry stone or turf. They were common during the age of transhumance, when people moved between the shieling in the summer and a more permanent valley settlement in winter. Ruins of shielings can be found across the Scottish Highlands.

SUMMARY

Back at the car park, we compared notes on how wet were were under our rain gear. All-in-all, we weren’t too bad, except one of our friends had an ineffective rain jacket and our boots needed to dry overnight. Fortunately, the rain didn’t seem to dampen anyone’s spirit too much. We rejoiced, in fact, in the shared experience of a “proper bog hike!”

Our total hiking distance was 13.2 km (8.2 miles), with 578 meters elevation gain. From start to finish, our “proper bog hike” took 4 hrs 45 minutes, including our lunch break, some photo stops and our brief time at the top.