Glen Kinglass and Loch Etive
Desperate to get away from the mawkishness of the jubilee weekend we headed up to Scotland for a week or so’s bike riding and generally messing about. I’d a few trails in mind that I’ve wanted to do for a while so created some GPX files incorporating them.
One of these was Glen Kinglass which I’ve noticed whenever driving along the A82 past Loch Tulla and also when riding along the WHW. It’s in the Vertebrate MTB guide and graded black in there but that route is linear, starting at Tyndrum, heading out along the WHW, through Glen Kinglass to Loch Etive before following estate tracks to Taynuilt and getting the train back to Tyndrum. The other “trail” I was interested in was the one heading inland along the east shore of Loch Etive. One or two have done it and let’s say the tales were interesting!
We pulled into the Real Food Café in Tyndrum for a bite to eat to find a dispirited Rich Rothwell - he should have been riding the HT550 but heading down Glen Lyon he was accidentally taken out by another rider and injured his thumb and ankle and had limped back. Suitably refreshed we headed to Victoria Bridge to start the ride.
Easy estate tracks led to a ford Image Then one that wasn’t really rideable. ImageThen we came across a group of young stags. They really weren’t bothered by us, Cath halved the distance to the one ahead of her in the shot below before it trotted away a few metres. They had probably been fed by the estate overwinter.
Image The track deteriorated a bit but it was all ridable. Image That led to the “Moab like” slabs. Yeah, right. Image Down into Glen Kinglass Image ImageThen turn right at the bottom and head up towards the head of the loch. Since the Vertebrate route took good tracks from this point to Taynuilt I’ve no idea why they graded it black, apart from the fords of various burns it was all ridable and if things had been wet beforehand you wouldn’t have got past the first big ford so there’s no commitment as such.
That patch of rock on the far hillside are the Etive Slabs a well known climbing destination. Unusual to see them from this angle.
Image Then things got a bit rough. Not sure what the brush was, I thought maybe Alder, Cath thought Bush Sage. Whatever, it made a mess of our legs and there was a lot of it. Image Our camp spot/bivy for the night. We took the tent as Glen Etive is midge central. As it happened there was a strong wind so we pitched the tent behind a gorse bush! Image The following day there was more Alder/Sage/whatever but also some riding: Image And boulder hopping Image At one point I thought I saw a Scottish wild cat - I came round a corner and something shot off before I could get a proper look. Fortunately we were on the beach at this point and found these tracks. Image Could have been a wild cat.Further up the loch things definitely got more rideable
Image Sometimes you can feel very small in Scotland. The Etive slabs at top right of shot. Image So far we’d done just 8km in 4 hours :shock:Up the Etive road avoiding the tourists who don’t know how to drive on singletrack roads. We pulled into the Kingshouse for something to eat and the first person we saw was Lars Henning who was covering the HT550 for Dotwatchers!
Image Then it was just back along the WHW to Victoria Bridge. Image