Ninety six miles from the outskirts of Glasgow to the heart of Fort William (I need to buy my dog a GPS tracker, it was probably 196 miles for her); and amazingly it was t-shirt weather nearly from start to finish – and early enough in the year for there to be no midges.
The route runs out into the countryside early and stays that way – over the shoulder of Conic Hill and down to the shore of Loch Lomond, at times it feels as if the loch never ends; you might expect it to be flat there but it’s probably the most challenging walking of the Way. Then up on the old military road, past Bridge of Orchy, over Rannoch Moor and into Glen Coe. From the Tailrace Inn in Kinlochleven you can almost smell the finish and, if you are very lucky, you’ll see the summit of Ben Nevis on the last day run-in to Fort William.
Clumps of people walk it giving their bags to a man in a van every morning, hoping to meet him again in time for tea. But if you do that you aren’t going to be pitching your tent on the shore of Loch Lomond and waking up at dawn with the loch and the sunrise all to yourself. Some things are worth getting sore and tattered feet for.
