The West Higland Way! And I Would Walk 100 Miles…
And I would walk 100 more…
The West Highland Way blaze (a Scottish thistle)
If you enjoy hiking, I would highly recommend walking The West Highland Way in Scotland, and I would recommend booking a self-guided walk through Wilderness Scotland. We booked this hike with them before Covid in 2019 for our 2020 trip and they have been amazing to work with the entire time. They are responsive, have different budgets and itineraries to choose from, send you everything you need for the hike, pick local places to stay near the path, etc. (We are not getting paid to advertise for them. We really just were that impressed!)
Look now, G and I are in our 30s, so while we could carry our full backpacks and camp for 100 miles through the Scottish Highlands, our knees and backs would really rather we didn’t, which is why we chose Wilderness Scotland to help us out. We had our bags ported for us to our new hotel (side note - all had full breakfast included) each day and we carried a small day pack with food, a first aid kit, and water. Some super fit people hike the entire way in 5 or 6 days, many hike it in 7 days, and we chose to do it in 8 days. You can add another day if needed. Here’s a breakdown of the day-by-day:
Day 1: June 22, 2022. Milngavie (pronounced Mill-Guy) to Drymen. 12 (14) miles
Let’s rewind for a minute to the day we arrived in London Heathrow Airport. G and I were going through border security, and the first question the gentleman asked us was “How long are you staying in England and what are you doing here?” to which I replied, “Well, we’re only going to be in London for a couple of days to visit a friend and then we’re going up to Scotland for about 3 weeks.” He immediately lit up and exclaimed “Oh, that’s all you need to say! But, what all are you doing in Scotland?” We quickly realized he was Scottish. I told him we were going to hike The West Highland Way and he got even more excited. “North to South or South to North?” “South to North”. He confirmed that’s the best way to do it. I asked if he’d ever hiked it and he said just parts of it but never the full thing. He warned us about the midges, small flies that swarm and bite, and informed us the best protection would be midge nets to put over our heads that we can buy at many stores. We thanked him. He happily let us into The UK.
Fast forward to now. The two things I’ve learned since we’ve been in Scotland it’s I have no idea how to pronounce anything and a Scottish mile is truly slightly longer than a legit mile.
Ok, back to the hike. We ate breakfast at Premier Inn in Milngavie and went on a search for midge hats. The two supermarkets we tried didn’t have them, so we crossed our fingers that we wouldn’t run into any major trouble with them and embarked on the start of our hike. We followed a river for a while and after a couple miles we were completely out of town. There were a few hills but nothing too difficult. One of our favorite moments of day 1 was after we hiked to the top of one of the hills, The Highlands presented themselves. About halfway through, we stopped at Glengoyne Distillery. We were fortunate to get there in time for a tour and a tasting of their delicious whisky. We stumbled (not really) back to the path which eventually led to a country road that we followed for a while. We passed by slow hobbits and Troll Bridge, cows, and more farmland before making our way to Drymen. We stayed at a lovely B&B, Bolzicco’s B&B, where the owner had also been a long-term traveler and we enjoyed chatting with him about both our travels.
Day 2: June 23, 2022. Drymen to Rowardennan. 14 (16) miles
Day 2 quickly proved to be hillier than day 1. We giddily witnessed the most Scottish thing of our time in Scotland. After walking up quite a few hills over country roads, we made it out of town and back to the nature path. As we were walking down a hill, we heard a man singing in Gaelic. Then we saw him in all his glory. He was a younger adult, sporting a dark mohawk, beard, and of course, a kilt, walking 5 dogs through the forest merrily singing in his native tongue. He said good morning and we wished each other a good day. We continued hiking through the forest and made it to Conic Hill, which was quite a hill but had a rewarding view of Loch Lomond, the largest freshwater lake in Great Britain. After going back down Conic Hill, we went through a large pine forest that eventually led to a parking lot. We stopped in a store where we bought some midge nets! From there we hiked along the lake shore, up and down many more smaller hills until we reached Rowardennan Hotel, situated right on the lake. We settled in, ate dinner, then walked out to the dock on the lake where we met some wonderful friends - a couple of ladies who are middle school teachers in Washington. We chatted with them for a while, were greeted by a little duck family, then went to bed early.
Day 3: June 24, 2022. Rowardennan to Inverarnan. 14 (16) miles
Although there was not much elevation on day 3, we found it to be the most difficult part of the entire trek. Fortunately, though, we had great weather for the first 3 days. The first half of the day wasn’t that difficult. We hiked up some big hills along the lake then back down to a small town with a picturesque waterfall. The second half of the hike on day 3 was never-ending. We stayed along the lake shore going up and down countless hills. Hills that were full of boulders and the path wasn’t smooth for miles and miles. At times we had to rock scramble. I have no idea how many single-leg squats and step-ups we did. We made it by following our motto, “go mall” (brief backstory, in Ireland they had “go mall” painted on some streets which means “slow”, so we would often go mall on this hike). That wasn’t the end of that day’s hike. We walked through a nice field for a bit, then up some larger hills going away from the lake, then down into a valley where we found our accommodation, Beinglas Farm. We rewarded ourselves with a pint and a meal at the farm’s pub where we ran into our teacher friends again. We exchanged our information with them so we could meet up again the next day then we went to sleep early around 9 pm.
Day 4: June 25, 2022. Rowardennan to Tyndrum. 13.25 miles
The trail on day 4 was much more forgiving than day 3, and from here on out we felt like we were up in the Highlands. We walked mostly out in the open, up and down hills with the gorgeous Highlands all around us. We passed by some quant rivers and creeks. While walking through a couple of farms, some of the sheep lazily people watched the hikers as they passed by. Once we reached the top of this hike, we entered a pine forest and were surrounded by woods nearly the rest of the way to our accommodation for the day, Tig na Fraoch. G and I discussed the hike so far with the hostess, who confirmed our suspicions that a Scottish mile was longer than a real mile because she had said day 2 and 3 of the hike were also more than 14 miles for her as well. Our teacher friends were staying at the same place so we grabbed dinner together at a cafe in town.
Day 5: June 26, 2022. Tyndrum to Bridge of Orchy. 7 miles.
We opted to chop one of our days up. Instead of hiking about 19 miles from Tyndrum to Kingshouse, we walked to Bridge of Orchy which was 7 miles away then the next day we would walk the remaining 12 miles to Kingshouse. That was absolutely the right choice because that day was the worst weather we would experience during the entire hike. Even through the rain and fog, our surrounding were still beautiful and we could see some of the munros (mountains that are over 3,000 ft in Scotland). It rained the entire time and was very windy and the weather worsened after we arrived at our hotel. We drank our tea and watched out of the window throughout the afternoon as the rain was blowing heavily sideways due to the wind. The following morning we were well rested because The Bridge of Orchy Hotel had one of the most comfortable mattresses I’ve ever slept on. Our new friends did not split the day but they were going to stay in Fort William for a couple of extra days so we planned on meeting them at the end of the trail.
Day 6: June 27, 2022. Bridge of Orchy to Kingshouse. 12 miles.
The elusive Scottish sun graced us with its presence again as we got an early start for our hike. We hiked up hills through a forest then up some more hills to a lovely overlook of a lake. A group of trail runners slowly passed us one by one as we were hiking down the hill. We thought we were pretty cool for hiking The West Highland Way and here was a group of trail runners doing their thing. Maybe they weren’t running the whole way. It’s good to be humbled every now and again. After we reached the bottom of the hill, we walked along a country road and passed by a few houses and hotels, over a bridge, then to another lodge. Here the path was part of an old military road that wound through the mountains all the way to our destination. I lost count of how many times I said “wow” because the lakes and mountains and waterfalls and fields and sun were just so gorgeous.
Since many people do this hike, there were a few people we saw nearly every day. The most intriguing to us was this Italian man. He looked like he was in his 40s, had dark, thick shorter hair, a well groomed medium length beard, was average height and build, and was covered in tattoos. He was hiking by himself and we would see him on the path and other places, a pub or cafe we would stop in or he would stay at the same hotel as us. I am so curious what his story is and why he decided to do the hike, but we never spoke to him other than saying hello. On this day, we saw him in the dining area of our hotel that morning as we ate breakfast. He left before us but we ended up passing him on the path. He was taking a break, lying down on a rock, drinking a juice box and enjoying the sun.
When we were a little over halfway through that day’s hike, the Highland rain returned but only briefly. We pressed on and eventually made it to Kingshouse Hotel, a recently renovated hotel that was built back in the 1700’s, situated in a valley near a river surrounded by mountains. This accommodation was in the most picturesque location. After dinner and a couple of drinks, we enjoyed the views and got close to a wild deer!
Day 7, June 28, 2022: Kingshouse to Kinlochleven. 9 miles.
Rainy day 7 really could be summed up with: we hiked up quite a ways to the summit, then up and down some small hills, then down and down and down and down all the way to basically sea level to Kinlochleven.
My knees did not appreciate going down so many hills (pro-tip: trekking poles probably would’ve been worth bringing) but we made it to town too early to check in to Allt-na-Leven, our B&B, so we grabbed lunch and tea in the hotel pub next door. After check in, we took a quick shower followed by a nap, then went to a different hotel pub for dinner. We saw the mysterious Italian man there but he left before we could introduce ourselves and strike up a conversation about the day’s hike. That was unfortunately the last time that we saw him, but somethings are meant to remine a mystery.
Random fun fact for all our climber friends: Kinlochleven has the world's biggest indoor ice climbing wall, rock climbing and aerial adventure course!
Day 8, June 29, 2022: Kinlochleven to Fort William. 15 (17.5) miles.
WE MADE IT! The day started out hiking up and up and up and up since we hiked all the way down the day before. It didn’t take long for the path to mellow out. The Scots saved some of the best views for the last day. We walked through a breathtaking valley for quite a ways then through some farm fields, up and down some big hills with Ben Nevis (the highest mountain in Great Britain) in the background, then along a road for the remainder of the journey. We snapped a photo near the original end of the West Highland Way, but hikers found it a bit lackluster, so it was extended to take you all the way through town to the end of the main street where you can take a photo next to a commemorative statue of a hiker with sore feet (we get it). We thought the new ending wouldn’t be far, but it felt like it was so far away. Our energy was wearing out but then we saw one of our teacher friends waiting just for us and we got the turbo boost we needed to finish strong! We made our way to our hotel, dropped of our bags, then we all went out to a delicious pizza place and brewery where we spent the evening debriefing and enjoying each other’s company. It was a perfect way to end a 100+ mile hike.
