The West Highland Way has long tickled my fancy - I had ran the first 53 miles of it back in 2010 in the Highland Fling Race (my firrst ultra) so I was familiar with some of the route, although the more interesting sections lie north of Tyndrum. What better an adventure to have over the long bank holiday jubilee weekend.
When planning the trip I thought I’d be able to cover the 96 miles in 3 days relatively comfortably. The route is well graded, apart from a short section along Loch Lomond isn’t technical and generally sticks to low ground. However taking travel into consideration this would make very long days and I didn’t particularly relish the long drive back afterwards. I decided instead to give myself 4 days, starting from Fort William and heading south. Not many people do the route in this direction but it meant I got most of the travelling out of the way on the first day and wasn’t restricted by train times on the return.
I drove up to Milngavie, left my car there and cauight the train up to Fort William which due to the forecast good weather over the bank holiday weekend was standing room only.
As with many of my fastpacking adventures a Harvey Map was my friend, and I have to say this one is the most comprehensive I’ve used, from mile/km markers along the route, notes on accomodation, travel & other information all in 4 different languages.
This isn’t the end of my adventures on the West Highland Way. I’ll be back next year for the race and longer term I have a bigger challenge.
I spend countless hours poring over maps and dreamning up routes and challenges. From my house its not a million miles to Creswelll which is the start of the Northumberland Coastal Path. This runs to Berwick from where the Berwickshire Coastal Path runs to just shy of Dunbar. From there the John Muir Way heads west until it intersects the West Highaland Way just north of Mulnvavie which theen runs to Fort William. From Fort William the Cape Wrath trail runs north to the very top of the Scottish Coast.
This means I could walk/run from my house to the very tip of Scotland almost entirely on national trails through some amazing scenery.
This one is a slow burner and will have to wait a few years but I’m definately keeping it on the radar.
