From the sparkling shores and sylvan islands of Loch Lomond to the soaring peaks and hanging valleys of Glen Coe, Scotland’s most celebrated long-distance trail will take your breath away, writes Dixe Wills
DISCOVER
What has been your highlight of the walk so far?” I asked Isaac and Ethan, teenage brothers I’d passed – and been passed by – several times in the final miles of the West Highland Way.
“All of it!” Isaac replied enthusiastically, to nods of approval from his younger sibling.
And that is, perhaps, the key to why this is one of the world’s most popular long-distance hikes. With its ever-changing scenery, it’s constantly rewarding the efforts of those who walk it with something fresh and interesting around every corner.
Opened in 1980, the West Highland Way was the very first official long-distance walk in Scotland and is now one of the nation’s designated Great Trails. Usually walked in five to eight days from south to north, the well-waymarked route begins in Milngavie (pronounced mul-guy), on the outskirts of Glasgow, and ends in the town of Fort William on Loch Linnhe.
On the way, it flanks the eastern shore of Loch Lomond, heads along impressive valleys such as Glen Falloch and Strath Fillan, rises up on to wild Rannoch Moor, passes the entrance to Glen Coe and tiptoes around the towering hulk of Ben Nevis.
At 96 miles (154 km) and around 4,000m of ascents (three climbs of Ben Nevis), it gives a taste of several distinct Highland landscapes without being too daunting. On my six-day end-to-end hike, I bumped into walkers of all ages: groups of cheery silver-haired Canadians, fathers with sons, mothers with daughters, and those out on a parent-free adventure like Isaac and Ethan.
That’s not to say that there are not challenges, as I was to discover. And, thanks in part to global warming, the dreaded midge may now be encountered from as early as April through to September, but take some repellant and a head net and you should be fine.
DAY ONE MILNGAVIE TO BALMAHA (19 MILES/31 KM)
Milngavie, with its railway station and plentiful shops, makes an ideal jumping off spot for a long-distance walk. I pushed some last-minute purchases into my pack, headed beneath the archway that marks the official start of the West Highland Way and, wandering
