The Great West Highland Glen Way - Outline

Okay, so I made that title up myself. But it describes more accurately, the walk I am currently planning for 2008. I'm writing this in April 2008, only 6 weeks before I leave for Scotland. The garden outside my window is about 3 or 4 inches deep in snow - something we haven't seen in about 7 years, here in Cheshire. My planning is pretty much all complete now; all the B&B's are booked, the baggage couriers are booked, all that remains is the train ticket.

My plan is to walk the West Highland Way, spend a day climbing Ben Nevis and then walk the Great Glen Way. I will often describe this walk as the West Highland Way, but that is simply for ease of description.

The West Highland Way was Scotland's first long distance path and the planning for it started as early as the 1960's, when England was planning the Pennine Way, its own first long distance path, or National Trail as they are now called.

The WHW starts at Milngavie, a northern suburb of Glasgow and runs approximately 95 miles to Fort William at the start of the Caledonian Canal, from where I intend to pick up the Great Glen Way, Scotland's most recent Nation Trail. This runs for another 75 miles, along the geological fault line of the Great Glen all the way to Inverness.

Milngavie is one of those town names (like Mousehole in Cornwall) that is designed to identify tourists to the local populace. Anyone pronouncing the name as it is spelled is obviously identifiable as an outsider and moreover an outsider who has not done any research about the town they are visiting. Additionally, anyone waiting at Glasgow railway station for a train to "Milngavie" is going to have a long wait.

Milngavie is actually pronounced something like Mull-Guy, with the emphasis on the second syllable.

My stages are designed with last years Offa's Dyke failure in mind. I start off with a couple of easy, shorter days and then extend the stages slowly to pick up the slack. The Great Glen Way is completed in four days, instead of the usual six or seven stages recommended by the official web site.

Itinerary & Walk Profiles

These walk profiles give an indication of the climbs involved each day, with the highpoint of each day indicated. Click each of the thumbnails to see a larger version of the image.

Day 1 - Milngavie to Drymen

Day 2 - Drymen to Rowardennan

Day 3 - Rowardennan to Inverarnan

Day 4 - Inverarnan to Tyndrum

Day 5 - Tyndrum to Kingshouse

Day 6 - Kingshouse to Kinlochleven

Day 7 - Kinlochleven to Fort William

Day 8 - Ben Nevis

Day 9 - Fort William to South Laggan

Day 10 - South Laggan to Invermoriston

Day 11 - Invermoriston to Drumnadrochit

 Day 12 - Drumnadrochit to Inverness

These walk profiles are based on the standard routes, they do not include any high level alternatives that I may decide to do. 

Guide Books

I am planning the walk using two guide books, which I will also carry on the walk for reference. Having enjoyed the Trailblazer guide to the Coast to Coast so much (Henry Stedman's book), I selected Charlie Loram's Trailblazer book for the West Highland Way and I've not been disappointed.

I made something of a random choice for the Great Glen Way guide and the beauty of the Cicerone guide by Paddy Dillon is that it covers the walk in both directions.

During the initial planning of the West Highland Way section of the walk I also looked at taking in some of the high peaks that line the route. Indeed, weather permitting I intend to try and bag a couple of Munro's along the way and have added a few high level alternatives to the usual WHW stages. I gleaned most of these alternatives from a book called the "Highland High Way", by Heather Connon and Paul Roper.

Of the three guides I like the Trailblazer guide the best, for the same reason I liked the C2C Trailblazer guide. The maps and route descriptions are simple but brilliant and the amount of detail on the facilities along the route are unsurpassed. This also means you could probably use the book as your sole navigational aid for the walk - although I doubt many sensible people would do this!

The Cicerone guide uses OS map extracts, but doesn't map the whole route and you have to rely on the words of Paddy Dillon to follow the route, not ideal and probably not a guide book to use to walk the trail. It has lots of interesting information on historic events and places, which certainly add to the enjoyment of such a walk.

Finally the Highland High Way book was the hardest to use. It doesn't have a single useable map in the whole book and relies completely on descriptions and the occasional grid reference to describe the route. Even following these descriptions and transferring the route to a map was difficult. The format of the book doesn't lend itself to being carried on a walk either, so all in all some work needs to be done on this publication I think.

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