The West Highland Way

In June of 2010 Robin's brother was getting married in Northumberland, England.  Robin and I could both get a lot of time off work and decided to go early and just call it our honeymoon.  We'd only been married a year, and since we traveled to Arizona for the wedding itself, we didn't really feel like more traveling right after that.

Robin had been all over the British Isles (and elsewhere), but it would be my first trip abroad.  For a long while we planned nothing.  About 10 days before our departure I looked through a photo-copy of a guidebook excerpt on the 95 mile West Highland Way.  My mom's friend did it with her husband a few years ago and passed the article our way.  After reading through it a few times we decided to go for it.

Both of us had done quite a bit of backpacking, but neither of us had done a trip that would involve lots of trail walking and staying close to civilization.  As a result, we did a horrible job packing.  Of course, it didn't help that the first half of the trip would be us gallivanting across Scotland, and the second half of the trip would involve wedding stuff and fancy clothes.  We also did the final WHW packing in our hostel room in Glasgow, while suffering from some pretty bad jet lag.

As a result our packs were probably around 25 to 30 pounds, as opposed to the sub-20 pound loads we were planning on carrying.  The list of items we schlepped through the highlands is rather embarrassing, so I won't include it.  The surprising thing is that our packs were still smaller and lighter than many hikers who were staying in hotels along the way.  We're not sure what they were carrying.  What we are sure of is that next time we will go super minimal.  Somehow I got it in my head that I might want a few extra items with me since we'd be in a lot of towns.  In reality, we needed less than what I'd carried even on my most minimal over-night trips (like 10 pound pack weight kind of trips).  You've heard it before and you're hearing it again, don't over pack.

Despite our moderately heavy loads, there were a number of things that made the WHW a wonderful walk.  I'll try to categorize these, as opposed to giving a day by day walk report.

Ease of Access

The trail starts in the small town of Milngavie, which is about 8 miles outside of Glasgow.  We flew into Glasgow the day before, enjoyed dinner and beer and picked up some stove fuel, and then caught the train from Glasgow to Milngavie.  It is cheap and easy.  There is no reason to rent (or 'hire') a car, and many hotels will hold your extra bag for a small fee (our hostel charged us a pound a day to keep our enormous duffel bag).  Of course, if you don't have a wedding to go to you could do the hike without worrying about an extra bag.  And when you finish the trail in Fort William you can hop aboard a ScotRail and be back in Glasgow in a few hours.

Non-Demanding Route Finding

The trail is ridiculously easy to follow.  Plenty of people along 'the Way' had guidebooks and maps, but we simply brought the photo-copied article I mentioned above.  I should say that the article itself says it is no substitute for a true guidebook.  Well, that might be true for some of the other hikes the authors write about, but for the WHW, I'd say save money and weight and leave the guidebook at home.

Nevertheless, we were still a little worried from time to time.  When we were on the train to Milngavie we had no idea if we would even be able to find the trail head.  Our grand plan was to just ask someone, but when we stepped off the train this is what we saw:

Don't worry, the whole trail isn't signed like this.  But it did make for a welcoming and comforting start.  Most of the time you'll be following markers like this:

There was only one point on the 95 mile trail that we were slightly confused.  We were coming out of Rowardennan after a nice lunch (which included a few ales) and the trail was just kind of meandering through a park and then all but disappeared.  It turned out the only way you could go was down a dirt road and lo and behold that was the WHW.  Disaster averted.

Diverse Trails

If you do the walk from South to North (which is what we did, and is what seems to be most common), you walk from the pastoral low lands, into ancient forests along Loch Lomond, and get deeper and deeper into the Highlands.  The terrain gets craggier and harsher as you go.  In some of the moors it seems that hardly anything grows.

Rolling pasture just south of Drymen on the first day.

This little section is along Loch Lomond.  It was possibly our favorite.

Soft pine covered trail through a nice forested section before Tyndrum.

Ben Dorain, welcoming us to the Highlands.

Me and a lone tree on Rannoch Moor

Robin in "full Hobbit mode," still on Rannoch Moor

I would really characterize the WHW as a series of really cool day-hike length trails that are connected by old droving roads.  At times the roads can get a little boring, like this one:

But at other times the views are rather spectacular, and a little boring section of old road is hardly even noticeable:

The Towns

Most of the hiking Robin and I have done in the past has been in the US, particularly in the southwest of Arizona, Colorado, and Utah and the northern midwest in Iowa and Minnesota.  In neither of these places do you have the chance to come across many towns along a trail.  But on the WHW you pass through a small town every 5 to 10 miles.  And every town has a pub.  Many times a pub/inn is the only thing a town has, but that was always more than enough for us.

We camped out all but one night, so our normal day to day hiking routine would be to get up, snack on nuts and raisins while packing up camp, and walk a few miles until we hit a town.  There we would enjoy a nice cup of tea and perhaps a pastry if we were feeling indulgent.  Then we would walk a few more hours until we hit another town where we would put our feet up and enjoy a couple pints and maybe a hot snack (the meat pies were my favorite).  Then we'd walk on a bit more until we wanted to set up camp and cook dinner.  This routine made for extremely civilized walking.

The Bridge of Orchy Hotel where we enjoyed a lovely cup of tea and a bisquit

Approaching the Inn at Inveroran, where more tea was consumed.

On the second to last night we splurged and got a room at the wonderful Kingshouse (we were exceptionally lucky as there was a cancellation just moments before we inquired about vacancies).  It was a dreary, damp night, so we were thrilled to have a warm room and a cooked meal.  We also made sure to indulge in some excellent Scotch (Highland Park, Oban, Ben Nevis, and Bowmoor).

The Kingshouse

Wild Camping

Scotland has a right to roam law, which as far as I can tell means you can camp just about anywhere you want to so long as you don't stir up any trouble, don't leave any trash around, and don't leave any gates open so the sheep can escape (actually the variety of gates you encounter on WHW is interesting enough to warrant its own post, I just wish I took pictures of all of them).  There are many excellent campsites, and it seems that most people are staying at inns, hotels, and hostels, so it isn't hard to grab a gorgeous spot and have it all to yourself.

We had two wonderful campsites right on the beautiful, and long, Loch Lomond.

High and dry as we approach the highlands.

Staying out of the mist at the foot of Ben Dorain.

The other wonderful thing about camping on your own is that you avoid most of the crowds.  We did the walk in mid-May (which we heard, along with October, is the best time of year to go), and there were quite a few people.  However, we didn't see too many while we were walking.  We attributed this to starting and ending our days in between towns.  The day after we stayed at Kingshouse we ended up starting with the masses,  and as a result, that was by far the most crowded and least enjoyable day of hiking we had.

The Weather

OK, this is probably not true for everyone's Highland experience.  But we won the Scotland weather lottery.  It misted a few nights, and on the second day we walked for about an hour in a light rainfall.  That was it.  Every Scotsman we encountered told us they had never seen such a string of good weather.  Even the sheep agreed.

In Short

This is a very fun, doable walk.  The ease of getting to the trail and staying on it, along with the excellent stops, made it a wonderful first international hike for us.  We are now ready to get out and explore other wonderful walks in the world.

The only disappointing thing about the trail was the end.  After 95 miles you get to a busy intersection that has only this:

Whoop-de-do.  It was noisy and not at all picturesque.  We were also shocked that there was no pub near that sign.  Someone is missing out on a serious business opportunity.  In our opinion there should be a fine pub next to that sign where hikers can toss their packs and enjoy excellent cask ales while they catch up with all the other hikers they leapfrogged over the past many days.

But the trail does end right near Ben Nevis, the tallest mountain in the UK.  I got up extra early the next morning to bag the summit before we caught the train back to Glasgow.  Visibility at the top was not much longer than the arm's length from which I shot my self portrait.

But things looked quite nice on the way down.   And while I wasn't thrilled to get up at 4am to begin the hike in the dark, I was very happy to be off the mountain by 7 as it was already getting very crowded.