Walking 'the Way'

By Andrew Gilchrist
THE GUARDIAN , LONDON
Wednesday, Oct 19, 2005, Page 13

I am standing in the toilets of a pub in Kinlochleven watching my pal drying his underpants under the hand-drier. It's lunchtime, it's raining, we're

exhausted, and it's still 22km to Ben Nevis, across the sort of terrain that would wreck a tank. Ah, this is the life.

You get a lot of moments like that on the West Highland Way, a momentous 152km trail stretching from Scotland's largest city to its highest mountain, by way of its biggest loch and its grandest moor.

Experienced give it seven days. But, we could only spare five.

But how hard could a stroll in the pretty countryside be? Scott Cunningham, a blind Glaswegian, did it with his golden labrador Travis. Dutchman Wim Epskamp ran it in about 16 hours. And 50,000 ramblers from all over the world walk it each year. And there are guesthouses along the way. No need to rough it in a tent.

So how hard is it? Viciously hard. "The Way," a near rite of passage for Scots, may provide magnificent views, rising from the romantic lowlands around Loch Lomond to the savage grandeur of Glen Coe, but they have to be earned -- step by painful step.

This month, the trek celebrates its silver anniversary and is mulling over a proposal backed by the UK's National Trust that may infuriate purists: to divert the route right down into Glen Coe, the thinking being that the existing path swings off to the north just before the best bit. Doubtless there are merits to the plan (including a meander past the once-seen, never-forgotten Three Sisters hulking over Loch Achtriochtan). But when I walked the Way last summer, I felt many things -- knackered, giddy and aching mostly -- but never shortchanged.

Day 1: Glasgow to Balmaha, 32km

The first big surprise comes six hours' march from Glasgow: you hit the Highlands that soon. In fact, at the top of Conic hill, you can stand with one foot in the Lowlands and one in the Highlands, for the faultline slices right through. Intoxicated, we tarried there as the sun set. Loch Lomond gleamed below us like a million glitterballs. Can it really get better than this?

Pain rating: 6. Pleasure: 8.

Day 2: Balmaha to Inversnaid, 22km

On we ventured, into the splendor of Rob Roy country. Creator of the world's first protection racket and reputedly so long of arm he could tie his garters without stooping, the notorious 18th-century outlaw MacGregor is a ghostly presence in these parts, where his "Children of the Mist" used to roam.

Towards Inversnaid, through oak and birch woodland, there's a sign saying "Rob Roy's Prison," referring to the rock cell where he supposedly held his kidnap victims. You might as well take a breather here, because this stretch along Loch Lomond is a backbreaking scramble that lasts all day over root and rock. You'll wish you'd packed less. You'll wish you weighed less. The views, when you are able to look, are delightful though.

Pain: 8. Pleasure: 8.

Day 3: Inversnaid to Crianlarich, 21km

US Nathaniel Hawthorne described this final leg round Loch Lomond as "the most beautiful lake and mountain view that I have ever seen." It boasts rich flora, feral goats (you may catch a musty whiff) and tree-framed views of the Arrochar Alps. At Dubh Lochan, the Way ascends, offering superb views back along Britain's largest inland body of water, an inspiration to Wordsworth, Coleridge and Scott -- and almost, after a squall caught his boat, a watery grave to Mendelssohn.

In what was now a pattern, Crianlarich took far longer to stagger into than expected, not helped by a wrong turn, bringing a descent through boggy bracken in the first rain we'd had. It was like walking in porridge. Awful, endless -- but we did spot a deer.

Pain: 9. Pleasure: 9.

Day 4: Crianlarich to Kingshouse, 42km

Mercifully, this stretch uses the sturdy military road built in response to the Jacobite risings. From Tyndrum onwards, it's all staggering, especially Rannoch Moor: a wild, desolate, dangerous place. Here, lined by Munros, the path threads round lochans and over streams to Ba Bridge, the Way's remotest stretch, where we'd been told to listen for "the cry of the eagle and the rutting of the deer."All I could hear was silence, a deep silence worth walking 112km for, broken only by the gentle hurlygush of the Ba. It's a great place to sit and feel the hum of the earth, the crackle of the universe, as something deep inside you slowly realigns itself, like the needle of a compass finding north. This is real detox -- and all it costs is a bit of boot leather and puff.

Pain: 6. Pleasure: 10.

Day 5: Kingshouse to Fort William, 35km

The good weather had ended. In horizontal rain, we zigzagged up the well-named Devil's Staircase with legs burning, heading away from Glen Coe. From the summit, the Way's highest point, we could see for, oh, meters and meters.

Torrents the path. Sometimes you picked your way over. Sometimes you just ploughed right through. At Kinlochleven we checked the map. Not. Even. Halfway.

And climb out was worse than the Devil's Staircase. Still, the weather lifted at the top, allowing superb views of Loch Leven and the Pap. Now it was just one long slog towards the colossus, Ben Nevis, dominating the skyline ahead. Past a loch, up a hill, through a forest and our spectacular trek -- 152km wearying, uplifting kilometers -- was finally over. We reached the pub at the foot of Glen Nevis near dead with exhaustion, yet never having felt so alive.

Pain: 10. Pleasure: 10.