Ratpacking on the West Highland Way

A lot can happen in the 95 miles it takes the West Highland Way to reach Fort William from Milngavie on the outskirts of Glasgow. This is the story of one trip where for six days barmaids were angered, indecent exposure narrowly avoided, pugs insulted and an 85l backpack semi-permanently wedged in a kissing gate on Conic Hill. Having survived stampeding sheep, overly-protective cows, poisonous algae, a Highland storm, midges, Glasgow Neds, and haggis—this was no ordinary walk. Derided by some as a ‘glorified pub crawl’, the West Highland Way has introduced numberless people to some of the wildest landscapes in the British Isles. A thistle emblem marked the way along old cattle droving and stagecoach routes, as well as the military roads constructed to aid in the suppression of the Highlanders following the Jacobite uprisings. From the outskirts of the rainiest city in Scotland it passed over the Highland Fault running through Loch Lomond, within a landscape increasing in grandeur, before peaking at mighty Ben Nevis. With no proper waterproofs, 47 year-old knees balking at the weight of an 85l over-stuffed backpack and wildcamping in a tiny one man tent - membership of the ‘Ratpack’ came at a cost. And yet this cost was repaid many times over by a path unsurpassed anywhere in Britain.