West Highland Way

It’s straight in to my Top 5 National Trails (the others being, in no particular order, Offa’s Dyke Path, the Pennine Way, South Downs Way and Southern Upland Way). And as anybody who has walked its 19 miles beside Loch Lomond will tell you, never ever knock the West Highland Way for being simple.

As a measure of its popularity, in the few weeks before I set off, two groups of my Essex & Herts LDWA colleagues had travelled up to the trail: Gill and Ginnie in five days, and Lizzie, Francoise, Fiona and Helen in six. It was useful to pick up some hints and tips from them, with special thanks to Gill, even if I didn’t always follow her advice!

I walked the 96 miles of the Way in six days of May 2023. For a day and a half I had my LDWA colleague Graham Smith (another WHW completist) for company, for my sole wild camp. I used a bunkhouse, a bothy and two campsites as well.

See how I walked the West Highland Way

* The LDWA offers a gold certificate to those who have walked 15 National Trails, and this was my fifteenth.

How many days?

Stronger and more experienced walkers will choose between five days and six.

Five days averages at 19 miles and a bit over 2500ft of ascent a day; pretty full-on, with little chance of a reset if things go wrong or the weather is plain horrible. Six days is still pretty thorough – 16 miles / 2200ft – but not quite so hectic, with maybe a shorter day here and there. I describe the choices that led to my personal schedule in the ‘Walking the West Highland Way’ page.

Seven days is a popular choice for many, and I met one walker taking eight. One of the guidebooks even includes an 11-day schedule.

Baggage transfer services help lighten the load, but against that having a tent in your pack gives far more flexibility in where to stop.

Towns and villages

The Way starts at the small town of Milngavie, a few miles north of Glasgow, and finishes at Fort William, one of the principal towns of the Highlands. ‘Fort’ is also the start/end of the Cape Wrath Trail, East Highland Way and Great Glen Way, so it’s an important place for walkers.

In between there are only villages, but Drymen, Balmaha, Crianlarich (a mile off-route), Tyndrum and Kinlochleven are all of reasonable size and have a good range of walker-friendly services.

Transport

Milngavie is easily reached from Glasgow by a frequent suburban rail service.

The central part of the Way runs close to the West Highland railway, with stations on or nearby the route at Ardlui, Crianlarich, Tyndrum and Bridge of Orchy. The line then beetles off across Rannoch Moor to Fort William itself. As well as the regular daytime trains for Glasgow, the line hosts the wonderful Caledonian Sleeper service for Preston, Crewe and London.

The Glasgow to Fort William coach service also serves those intermediate points, and additionally Kingshouse on Rannoch Moor. If you want to head north, coaches also link Fort William to Skye and Inverness. Kinlochleven has a separate bus service to Fort William.

Accommodation

All the towns and villages have a good range of accommodation, often including bunkouses and camp sites. The smaller settlements of Rowardennan, Inversnaid, Inverarnan, Inverorarn and Kingshouse have at least a hotel each; some are pricey, others more walker-friendly.

There are two bothies on route, Rowchoish and Doune Byre, both on the northern end of the Loch Lomond section – I used the latter.

Responsible wild camping is allowed almost everywhere, thanks to Scotland’s far-sighted access legislation. Unfortunately the relative accessibility of Loch Lomond led, it seems, to many instances of irresponsible wild camping. Accordingly, there is now a March-to-September permit scheme in operation for the section between Drymen and Ptarmigan Lodge, north of Rowardennan. However this section includes the no-frills campsite at Sallochy, and a couple of other more traditional ones, so it should be able to work around this (or, just get a permit).