West Highland Way, Day 2 Conic Hill to Cashel Campsite (10 km, ↑ 353 m, ↓ 312 m)
We survived our first night in the tent. The clouds had been hanging low when we arrived and it was cold enough that I slept in my fleece and beanie, but we stayed completely dry. Not a single drop on the tent - a small miracle, knowing that this is Scotland.
The decision to push further to Conic Hill means that today we would have a shorter day - 10 km in total, though the ascent and descent of Conic Hill would make a more challenging terrain compared to yesterday's mostly flat trail. We would also be hiking alongside Loch Lomond for the first time, which I had been looking forward to since Milngavie.
Logistically, the Loch Lomond part of the trail is a bit complicated for campers: a part of the trail of West Highland Way passes through what is called the Camping Management Zone where wild camping is not permitted. This area covers a portion of the trail along Loch Lomond. If you are carrying a tent, there are two ways to handle this situation: either buy a a camping permit at the only designated spot, or stay at one of the three campsites along the trail. I had tried for a permit - there are only five available per day for the one spot - but by the time I went to buy one, they were gone. So tonight we would be staying at a campsite that I had booked in advance, which honestly, is not a bad thing after all except if you're a wild camping purist. Mixing in the occasional campsite is not a bad thing: you get a shower, sometimes a small shop where you can restock food or fuel or extra Compeeds, plus the particular pleasure of not having to dig a hole for your number twos.
Knowing that the campsite is only 10 km away, we really took our sweet time with our breakfast. We have established our routine from when we were hiking portions of the Malerweg: coffee, always, to start with, and any kind of bread we could find the day before. This time, we had some cardamom buns that we picked up from Turnip the Beat. This is exactly what I had imagined when I decided that we should go wild camping: waking up to the quiet and a beautiful view, with coffee and breakfast in hand.
Conic Hill would be our first real ascent on this trip, and I had been looking forward to it. The climb was not steep but within a few minutes we were already far above where we had slept last night, and the landscape had completely changed. If in Malerweg I would feel a slight claustrophobia with the cliffs closing on both sides of the valley, here it was the opposite. The hills just stretched and stretched in every direction I saw, and I could even make out dots of sheep that must be so far away. The view was so expansive that it put me in awe and distracted me from the fact that we still had a few steps to go until we reach the summit.
The actual summits of Conic Hill itself are not directly on the path of the West Highland Way, but we thought why not? Might as well do a side quest since today is a short day. On the top of the hill there was a saddle between what actually appeared to be two summits, which clearly has been used as a camping spot before - albeit a bit exposed - and probably would have been our choice had we still the energy yesterday. The weather at the top was not particularly great, but luckily it was not raining, and it was still clear enough that we could still have a clear view of Loch Lomond, which looks impossibly large from here.
Soon it became apparent that Conic Hill is a popular spot for day hikers, even when the weather was grey and it was a weekday. Day hikers would usually come from the opposite direction, since this is where the next town is - Balmaha - that sits just beneath Conic Hill. The descent was much easier with stairs lined up with stones all the way down, though still hard on the knees. After we made it to the bottom, we officially entered the Loch Lomond national park and the Camping Management Zone, where we walked through a lush and green forest before reaching Balmaha. It made me think about how the rest of the trail would look like. Will it be more of this dense green, or something else?
By 11, we were already in Balmaha, so ready to take off our backpack. It was too early for lunch, but probably a bit too late for a second breakfast. We would always have space for some Irn-Bru, though, which tasted so good after our first big ascent and descent on the trip. Balmaha itself isn't such a big town, right on the trail there is only one inn, one cafe, and one restaurant located across the carpark, so it's no surprise that this is where all the hikers congregated. The restaurant didn't start serving until noon and so we decided to wait. It ended up being one of the best decisions we made today. They had homemade steak pies, and we ordered the haggis and the Cullen Skink, both with portions generous enough to carry us all the way to the campsite.
Another side quest that we did in Balmaha was to hang out with ducks and swans:
We also spent time at the Tom Weir memorial, a Scottish climber who born and raised in Glasgow, who also spent a lot of time in the Scottish mountains. It felt right to take a break here there, at the edge of the loch, before heading back into the mountains that he loved very much.
After Balmaha, the path slowly climbed up into the hills and became noticeably undulating, a characteristic that my guidebook notes, makes the Loch Lomond stretch the most challenging section of the entire West Highland Way. Between the hills, there were stretches of road walking, and occasionally the trail would lead us to the loch's rocky shore, which threw me back to my old Fisherman's Trail days. I still haven't decided though if hiking on rocky Scottish beaches is easier than Portuguese sandy beaches.
Today was also the first time we got to see some highland cows up close!
Cashel Campsite was located right by the loch, and while it seems to primarily serve camper vans, they also have a generous stretch of grass for tent campers like us too. After checking in we scanned for the perfect spot and decided on one that is closer to the loch, although it probably was not our best idea because it turned out to be very windy and this became our most challenging tent set up so far, to the point where we had to deploy some extra guy lines. But at the end of the day we managed to set up our shelter. With a shorter day behind us, we had plenty of time to take a shower, wander around the campsite, and go visit the family of ducks living in one of the ponds before having our camp dinner and going to bed.
