As Friday 13ths go, we got away lightly, with one mix-up that has proved to be great learning.  More on that later.  We woke up to yet more snow as the view from the bedroom window shows, but bright with sunny spells.  Still cold though at -2 degrees C.  Because we missed yesterday’s goal Hazel had to drive me quite a way back to the start point.  A crisp morning and a good road with little traffic so it seemed like an opportunity to try and catch up some of yesterday’s short miles.  First 5 miles done in 1 hour 20 minutes.  Phew.

We lunched in Tyndrum after an uneventful stroll down the West Highland Way.  The path basically follows the A82 and the railway, so no dramatic cross country experiences to report.  The lunch stop was full of bikers heading up to Kinlochleven for the motorcycle trials.

After lunch I stuck to the footpath which took me through a forest and should have been labelled “Mountain Goats Only”.  Talk about nasty surprises.  Steep ups and downs, but not too long at a stretch so I shouldn’t complain.

Which brings us to the day’s lesson.  We had agreed that I would stop where the path crossed the main road and would wait for Hazel to pick me up, unless I was tired in which case I would stop at Crianlarich and wait at the station.  No phone signal for either of us for the rest of the day so poor Hazel tried to shuttle between the two possible stopping points.  Somehow we missed each other for over an hour.  No panic but worry was setting in all round.  Hazel – “Where can he be?  What to do?”, and the same questions from me.  In the end I hitched a ride back towards Crianlarich and we saw Hazel in a layby.  A good outcome and no domestics, but we will not have an ambiguous end of day plan again!

Rest day tomorrow for Ben Nevis on Sunday.