HISTORY
The West Highland Way was the first official long-distance footpath in Scotland. The idea was conceived in the 1960s at the height of enthusiasm brought about by the opening of the Pennine Way in England.
It’s a massive task to create such an ambitious right of way requiring investigation of the best route, endless liaising between the various local authorities and the Countryside Commission for Scotland, negotiations with landowners through whose land the Way might pass and then finally, when all has been agreed, the construction of the path itself. This may seem simple, yet a flagship route such as the West Highland Way required information boards, waymarks, sturdy bridges and stiles, and adequate surfacing and drainage to cope with the high numbers of walkers it would inevitably attract. As a result it took until 1980 for the Way finally to be declared open.
HOW DIFFICULT IS THE WEST HIGHLAND WAY?
No great level of experience is needed to walk the West Highland Way as the whole trail is on obvious, well-maintained paths with excellent waymarks where needed. The first half of the route, south of Tyndrum, is across gentle terrain generally sticking to the bottom of valleys or traversing their sides. Only on a couple of occasions does the trail rise to just over 300m (1000ft) and on the first and hardest instance, the crossing of Conic Hill, this mildly strenuous section can be avoided. On this half you are never far from help and there’s plenty of shelter should the weather turn foul.
North of Tyndrum the terrain becomes a little more challenging. With fewer settlements it can even feel quite remote. The trail crosses some high, desolate country: Rannoch Moor (445m/1460ft), the Devil’s Staircase (548m/1797ft) and the Lairigmor (330m/1082ft), all of which can be exposed in bad weather. Crossing these magnificent parts gives you a true taste of Highland Scotland and you will require basic outdoor competence to do so safely (see pp49-53 for further advice).
Route finding
The West Highland Way has been sensitively waymarked with brown wooden posts in appropriate places. Each of these is marked with the West Highland Way symbol, a white thistle within a hexagon, to confirm the line of the trail. They have an additional yellow arrow when indicating a change in direction. Used in combination with the detailed trail maps and directions in this book you have no excuse for getting lost.
HOW LONG DO YOU NEED?
During the annual West Highland Way race (see p22) all 95 miles (152km) of the route are run in under a day. Admirable though this is you will probably want to take a little longer.
The suggested itineraries in this book (see pp26-7) list various schedules of between six and nine days for walking from Milngavie to Fort William, showing that with a rest day you can easily complete the Way in a week to ten days. If you can afford to take longer you will have the time to climb mountains along the route, explore Glasgow, Glen Coe and Glen Nevis or simply dawdle when the weather is kind. If this sort of wandering is more your style a fortnight should be generous enough.
For walkers with less time on their hands you could conceivably catch a bus or train over the less interesting sections of the Way. For instance, missing out the rather tedious section from Inverarnan to Tyndrum, or even to Bridge of Orchy, would not upset the essential character of the walk and would shorten your time by one or even two days.
There are also some superb day and weekend walks along the best parts of the Way for those who want to sample the walk in bite-size chunks; see p23 for these highlights.
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