Not The West Highland Way

• Location
• Description
• Contents
• Introduction
• Sample Route
• Reviews
• Further Reading

West Highland Way

West Highland Way by Roger Smith (Mercat Press 9th ed 2010) or the original West Highland Way Official Guide by Robert Aitken (HMSO 1980)

The West Highland Way by Terry Marsh (Cicerone 2nd edition 2009). Cheaper than the ‘official’ guide, a handier size, and with full 1:50,000 strip map and a waterproof cover.

The West Highland Way by Ronald Turnbull (Frances Lincoln 2010). A picture book with a smattering of history and wildlife.

Wider guidebooks

The Highland High Way by Heather Connon and Paul Roper (Mainstream 1996 out of print). A ‘Not the WH Way’ in all but name, using WH Way overnight points and taking the highest and most energetic mountain routes between them, crossing 25 Munros (the maximum Munros using routes in Part One of this book is 13).

Walking the Munros Vol 1 by Steve Kew (Cicerone 2004). All the 3000ft summits in the Southern Highlands, by their popular standard routes.

The Central Highlands: Six Long-distance Walks by Peter Koch-Osborne (Cicerone 1998). Expands outwards from Steve Kew’s book, with glen walks on good paths and tracks: from Taynuilt to Dalwhinnie, a network over Rannoch Moor, and an excursion from Drymen northeastwards to Glen Almond.

Backpackers’ Britain Vol 4: Central and Southern Scottish Highlands by Graham Uney (Cicerone 2008). More ambitious backpacking taking in high mountain ridges.

North to the Cape by Denis Brook and Phil Hinchcliffe (Cicerone 1999). The full 21-day walk from Fort William to Cape Wrath on tracks, paths and the odd bog, not crossing any summits. Their route starts the good way, over the Camusnagaul ferry.

Walking Loch Lomond and the Trossachs by Ronald Turnbull (Cicerone 2009). Full walkers’ guide to mountains, lower hills, and valley routes in the National Park, north to Tyndrum.

Ben Nevis and Glen Coe by Ronald Turnbull (Cicerone 2007). Full walkers’ guide to mountains, lower hills, and valley routes north and west from Inveroran to the Great Glen.

History and fiction

Rob Roy Macgregor: his Life and Times by W.H. Murray (Canongate 1982). Scholarly and readable, and includes general matter on Macgregor hiking exploits.

Rob Roy (film) directed by Michael Caton Jones (1995), starring Liam Neeson, Jessica Lange, John Hurt, Tim Roth. History or fiction? A surprising amount is historically based, the scenery is splendid and so are the villains.

Rob Roy by Sir Walter Scott (1817, many paperback editions). Adventures along the side of Loch Lomond, with a long and authoritative historical introduction.

Glencoe: the Story of the Massacre by John Prebble (Penguin 1968). An account that’s vivid and moving, but scholarly as well; the complicated politics, the drama and sadness, plus general hiking exploits of the MacDonalds.

Recollections of a Tour Made in Scotland by Dorothy Wordsworth (1803, included in Dorothy Wordsworth: a Longman Cultural Edition ed Susan Levin). Most of the WH Way, plus Glen Coe and some poetry.

Coleridge among the Lakes and Mountains (Folio Society, 1991, available secondhand). The poet walked much of the WH Way and the Great Glen Way in 1803, as well as in Somerset and the Lake District.

Hostile Habitats: Scotland’s Mountain Environment (SMT with Scottish Natural Heritage). A useful, well-illustrated guide to wildlife and landforms.

The West Highland Railway by David St John Thomas (David & Charles 1965). On Rannoch Moor, a train-spotter’s anorak is actually an essential, as the seven surveyors with their umbrellas discovered in 1889. Fascinating stories of bottomless bogs, runaway trains and lethal hillwalks out of Corrour; almost no numbers copied off the fronts of trains.

Kidnapped by Robert Louis Stevenson (1886). Would be Scotland’s finest historical adventure even if it didn’t involve a long-distance walk across Rannoch Moor.

John Splendid by Neil Munro (1898). A fairly gripping historical romance featuring a lost walker on Rannoch Moor (Route 21) as well as Montrose’s winter raid along Route 20. It is written, intriguingly, from a pro-Campbell point of view.

Narrow Road to the Deep North by Basho translated by Noboyuki Yuasa (Penguin, originally published 1689). ‘Every day is a journey, and the journey itself is home.’