The snow comes down hard through the night. I set an alarm for 5 AM to peek outside and, seeing the hotel's back lot stuffed with snow, I re-set the alarm for 8 AM. Our original itinerary called for an 8-mile hike from Morvich to the magnificent Falls of Glomach deep in the central highlands. For a second trip in a row (after Iceland's Glymur hike), our Waterfall of the Trip has been scuttled by unusually wintry conditions. We sleep in and enjoy a sit-down breakfast in the hotel's lobby restaurant before setting off from Kyleakin around 9 AM with plans for two alternative hikes and a shorter day overall. We proceed east from Kyle of Lochalsh through Kintail, stopping briefly beside Eilean Donan Castle on the shores of Loch Duich. The snow-covered pine forests near the Kyle soon give way to a brilliantly clear morning as we pass Shiel Bridge and rejoin our inbound route from Fort William. After several days of relatively mild weather, we are destined to see some quantity of snow every day for the rest of the trip - though, quite mysteriously, it never accumulates.
Heading northwest from Kintail toward Loch Ness, we stop first at the Dundreggan Conservation Estate, a rare plot of ancient Caledonian woodland administered by Trees for Life and the Scottish National Trust. Leaving a donation at the car park, we take a brief walk up the hillside into a grove of gnarled, thousand-year-old pine woods. In a sunny clearing among the trees and the dense, brown curls of bracken, we get a nice view of the River Moriston below us. Dramatic vistas and sweeping landscapes having come and gone without any good opportunity to do so, I finally propose to Jane here, in a quiet, ancient little forest just off the highway. She runs to turn off my camera before saying yes.
We drive next past the village of Invermoriston, bearing left on the A82, which cuts from Fort William in the southwest to Inverness in the northeast, following the great slip fault that transects Scotland, dividing its Northern Highlands from the Grampian Mountains. This fault, over time, was dug into a shallow valley by glacial ice and eventually filled by wood and lake water. That lake is now known as the famous Loch Ness, and the bed it inhabits is known as Glen More or Glen Albyn ("The Great Glen", "The Glen of Scotland"). Cruising north along the highway as it curves along the west shore of Loch Ness, we pass through the town of Drumnadrochit and bypass the famous Urquhart Castle. We stop at the Clansman Hotel near Abriachan. Jane goes into the gift shop to buy a pack of hard mint candies before we set off north of the car park, following an old coffin road up the hillside overlooking Loch Ness. After a mile of constant, steady climbing, we reach a lookout point around a switchback, and are rewarded with a single wooden bench to sit upon and enjoy a sweeping view of the lake. From here, we can see the city of Inverness to the north, and to the east of us across the lake, the smooth ascent of the glen into a broad, high plateau - the Monadliath Mountains and, beyond them, the Cairngorms. We are bound for the ski town of Aviemore, nestled in a valley within that snowy plateau.
After sitting for awhile and taking in the views, we descend the coffin road and return to our car at the Clansman Hotel. We eat a quick lunch in the backseat before continuing our northward drive, into Inverness. In the city, we find another Morrison's and re-supply our stock of sandwiches, fruit, drinks, and pastries. Jane assumes the steering wheel for her third and final time of the trip as we leave the city and navigate southeast, ascending the broad plateau into the Grampian Mountains. Farmland and riverland quickly transform into snowy hills covered in conifers, cliffsides, and jagged mountaintops. The two-lane highway is gently sloped but constantly winding. Jane plants us firmly behind a Fedex tractor trailer ("FedEx lorry! FedEx lorry!" she corrects me) and becomes its best friend - no one can spite us for driving slowly if our front bumper is glued to an 18-wheeler. In spite of this, we make good time, and leave the highway around 3 PM to arrive at the adorable Rowan Tree Country Inn, a 3-story cottage with a snow-covered yard and a roaring fireplace. After carrying our bags to our very pink room on the top floor, Jane takes an afternoon nap while I perch by the window, watching the snow fall over the fir trees as cars come down the road one-by-one, their headlights glowing. In the evening, we head downstairs for a delightful dinner of lamb and fish. Jane stays up watching B-rate horror movies.
