Beinn Dorain and Auch Gleann (Route 8) with Beinn a’ Chaisteal and Beinn Odhar; the WH Way runs along the base of the hills
Maps
The West Highland Way is a wide, well-used path, or else a vehicle track, and is well waymarked. For anyone aiming for nothing more than the mere path, even the cheapest map will do. That cheapest map is produced by Footprint, at about £5. The best map of the path is Harveys West Highland Way at 1:40,000 scale. It’s printed on tough polythene, has proper contour lines, and covers a wide enough strip to include Ben Lomond (Routes 2 and 3), the Mamores crossing (Route 12) and the less interesting route up Ben Nevis.
For long hikes through the back country, you need a map that not only shows that back country but also the ground around – in case you wander into that ground and get lost (or more cheeringly if you’re inspired to wider explorations than originally planned). The very useful Harvey ‘ British Mountain Map series is at 1:40,000. ‘Southern Highlands’ covers the area from Rowardennan on Loch Lomond to Tyndrum. ‘Ben Nevis’ continues northwards, from Inveroran and the head of Loch Etive, with the exception of Route 21 to Rannoch Station. The map is printed on polythene so robust that one outdoor writer uses it as his groundsheet.
Second best is still more than good enough. The Ordnance Survey’s Landranger series at 1:50,000 covers the whole area, and indeed the whole of the UK. It is well surveyed, clear and easy to read. It has two minor drawbacks. Even on a brand new map, the information on forestry plantations and forest roads is liable to be a decade or two out of date. And the footpaths marked are proscriptive rather than descriptive, which is a fancy way of saying they mark paths that ought (for historical or other reasons) to exist, rather than the ones that actually do. Sheets 64 (Glasgow), 56 (Loch Lomond), 50 (Glen Orchy) and 41 (Ben Nevis) cover the ground – almost. You need Sheet 57 (Stirling) for Drymen on the WH Way, but not for any of the ‘Not the WH Way’ routes. And the Rannoch crossing (Route 21) requires Sheet 42 (Glen Garry) as well as Sheet 41.
For exploration of crags and corries and pathless boulder slopes, you would be helped by the extra contour detail at 1:25,000 scale. The routes in this book don’t require this extra bulk and expense. However, for those who insist that bigger is invariably better, there is the 1:25,000 Explorer series of the Ordnance Survey. This is excellent mapping apart from the fact that many of the summits are so obscured with crag-marks that the contour detail is almost illegible. If you’re prepared to pay extra for a map that’s printed on waterproof paper, and marks paths where they actually are, most (but not all) of the routes are on various 1:25,000 Superwalker sheets from Harveys.
A compass is a very useful aid in mist, even if your skills only extend to ‘northwest, southeast’ rather than precision bearings. Magnetic deviation is about 4° west: to convert a map bearing accurately to a compass one, add 4. No magnetic rocks have been found in this area (it’s you that’s wrong, not the compass!). GPS receivers should be set to the British National Grid (known variously as British Grid, Ord Srvy GB, BNG, or OSGB GRB36).
How to use this book
The headers at the start of each walk should be self-explanatory. The walk-type icons are shown on page 9. The difficulty blobs are explained in the panel opposite. The length blobs correspond with the approximate times in the main headers: one square is a short day up to six hours, two squares up to eight hours, and three squares an even longer day; four squares are two days, and five is longer than that. The approximate times are based on one hour for 4 horizontal km or for 500m of height gained, with extra time where the ground is particularly steep or rough. They’ll be about right, including snack stops, for a moderately slow party with light rucksacks, or a moderately strong one backpacking.
Within Part One, in between the Not the West Highland Way’s numbered routes (hill crossings and circular outings), there are brief descriptions of the actual WH Way, for use in case of tiredness or nasty weather. These have their own walk icon, showing Telford’s road to Kings House (see page 9).
For the linear routes of Parts Two and Three, the headers include notes on public transport to and from the end-points, and, if there should be any, of facilities such as shops available on the way. The WH Way itself is splendidly equipped with hostels, campsites, bus stops and shops; these are listed in Appendix B, along with general public transport information.
Buachaille Etive Mor and Beinn a’ Chrulaiste from the track to Black Corries Lodge (Route 21)
In old numbers, 600ft was a vertical distance, while 200yd was horizontal. I’ve used a similar convention, so that 600m is an altitude, or a height gain, while 600 metres (with ‘etres’) is along the ground. I use ‘track’ (rather than ‘path’) for a way wide enough for a tractor or Landrover.
The difficulty estimates are on a rough scale of 1 to 5:
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Clear smooth paths, no steep sections |
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Small rough paths, some steep ground |
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Short steep climbs or long gentle ones, pathless ground with clear ridge lines |
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Some boulderfields, steep rough ground, navigation at the level of ‘northwest, southeast’; remote country a day’s walk from any road |
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Featureless plateau or moorland requiring compass bearings in mist; heather tramping; remote high ground; long steep rough ascents and descents; rocky ground and scrambling |
A Winter Not the West Highland Way
The Not the West Highland Way idea is less perverse than it sounds. Ever since the path was opened walkers have been taking in Ben Lomond, and using Ben Nevis as a post-walk warm-down. Many more will have walked under Beinn Dorain, gazed longingly upwards, and wished they’d brought along the extra map and hadn’t already scheduled themselves forward to Inveroran. When I stopped on my own WH Way walk at Tyndrum’s By the Way Hostel, I wasn’t terribly surprised to see the squiggly line painted across its ceiling that is the altitude profile for ‘The Highland High Way’, a Not the WHW that’s a whole lot more strenuous than anything in this book, invented in 1996 by two tough types called Heather Connon and Paul Roper.
South ridge of Binnein Mor
Indeed, the usual response to Not the West Highland Way isn’t so much ‘Not the what?’ as ‘Oh I did that ages ago.’ My friend David Didn’t the West Highland Way in May 1990, under ‘more snow than I was planning on for a solo trip’. David enjoyed all four of the Blackmount Munros before a night at Kings House with a disconcerting waterbed effect under his tent as the ‘bathtub-type’ sewn-in groundsheet operated as the name suggests (except with the water being on the outside). He continued, much more energetically than anything in this book, over Buachaille Etive Mor, the sky-piercing scramble of the Aonach Eagach,