It's a Gavination

The West Highland Way – Slighe na Gàidhealtachd an Iar in Gaelic – is a 96-mile long-distance route in Scotland running from Milngavie (Mull-guy) north of Glasgow to Fort William in the Scottish Highlands. We started walking on September 9th, 2022, after spending a night in Glasgow to shake off jet lag. By waiting until September, we avoided the vast hoards of walkers in summer, and the midges were mainly done for the season. We booked all the accommodations and hired AMS Baggage Transfer service to move our luggage daily, so we carried only small day packs.

Day	Walking from village to village	Miles	Accommodations
1	Milngavie to Drymen	12	Greenshadows
2	Drymen to Rowardennan	15	Tarbet Hotel
3	Rowardennan to Inverarnan	14	The Drovers Inn
4	Inverarnan to Tyndrum	12	Glengarry House
5	Tyndrum to Kingshouse	19	The Glencoe Inn
6	Kingshouse to Kinlochleven	9	Coe Pod
7	Kinlochleven to Fort William	15	The Garrison Apartments

The walk is usually completed south-to-north, giving you a nice warm-up on low ground and gradually moving higher in elevation. Back home in Colorado, we did several training hikes in the San Juan mountains, so we didn’t find the walk overly taxing; even the loathed Devil’s Staircase, we found a piece of cake. But we were knackered when we arrived in Fort William from the sheer accumulation of miles over the previous seven days, which means we’ll have to return to Scotland to climb Ben Nevis.

This was our second trip to Scotland, but our first to the highlands, and we absolutely fell in love! We fondly remember the days spent walking along the shore of Loch Lomond and the one night we spent in the haunted room at the Drovers Inn, but we especially loved the walk from Tyndrum to Kingshouse. At the start of that day, we climbed out of the Alt Kingglass River valley to the Bridge of Orchy, where I had my first and only English scone with clotted cream and jam. Life Changing! From there, we climbed onto the shoulder of the Black Mount range, across Rannoch Moor, and over to Kinghouse. The landscape in this section of the trail feels tremendous and quite remote. It was covered in beautiful Scottish Heather, grass, and rock–this section of the trail was by far my favorite. That night, we got our first view of Buachaille Èite Mòr, a pyramid-shaped peak pictured in the James Bond movie Skyfall.

A favorite keepsake of this walk was meeting two English chaps, Nigel and John, on our first day. Our itineraries didn’t match every day, but we walked with them a fair bit and met up for dinner a few nights. They have been walking together worldwide for many years when their wives let them away and had great stories and recommendations for other walks. We adored their company and stories and hope to meet again for another adventure.

Once we finished the walk, we picked up a rental car and drove to the Isle of Skye, where we toured Eilean Donan Castle and Talisker Distillery. Then we took a ferry to the Outer Hebrides to Lewis and Harris Island, where we visited Scarista Beach, the Calanais Standing Stones, and the Butt of Lewis Lighthouse. Then, after another ferry ride, we drove to Inverness and toured the Culloden Battlefield, where the Scottish Jacobites finally stood and lost on 16 April 1746 against the English Army of King George II. Afterward, we traveled to the coastal town of Lossiemouth to visit our Scottish friends’ sheep and cow farm in Forres.

Having traveled all the way to the UK, we also visited our Irish friends briefly before returning to the States. They are gracious and loving and make us feel like family when we visit, even treating us to a concert of Cherish the Ladies, whom I adore. Spending time with our beloved Irish friends in Sligo is always a treat! Lastly, we made a pit stop to see the Giants Causeway and Gobbins Clif Path in Northern Ireland before finally coming home to Colorado. Although we trekked in Nepal, this was our first proper walking holiday, but it would certainly not be our last.