Not the West Highland Way. Ronald Turnbull

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      INTRODUCTION

      The High Road and the Low

      The West Highland Way is one of the finest, if not the finest, of Britain's long-distance paths. It passes through six separate mountain ranges, from the tall cone of Ben Lomond and the crag towers of grim Glen Coe, to the seductive Mamores. It runs from Scotland's largest city, alongside her longest loch, by way of the biggest and bleakest patch of peaty moorland, to the foot of her highest mountain, paralleled in its path by (as it happens) the Highlands’ second busiest main road and also the West Highland Railway.

      The comfortable gravel path, the well-placed waymarks and cosy bunkhouses, the cheerful evening singer doing (yet again) Loch Lomond's ‘bonnie banks’: do these really compensate for not going up any of those mountains? Not when above the stony path there rises the compelling cone of Beinn Dorain, sprinkled at its top with snow. So instead of sticking to the path I wandered up the Auch Gleann and bagged Beinn Dorain from the back, leaving the West Highland Way, over three miles to Bridge of Orchy, technically unwalked.

      For those new to the Highlands and the big hills, the WH Way is a dream – and a convenient dream, with its signposts and bridges, its hostels and its shops. But for those more familiar with the hills, it's a shop itself: a sweetie shop – and you haven't any pennies in your pocket. For all of those fine mountains are seen, yes, but you're not allowed to touch.

      As Capt Edward Burt recorded in 1765, of the military road that's now the WH Way: ‘The objections made by some among the Highlanders are that the bridges in particular will render the ordinary people effeminate.’ And it's happened. It may be Scotland's best long-distance path: but this book intends to do a great deal better.

      Part One takes the line that you're walking the route of the conventional WH Way, and using its overnight stops; but during the days you divert onto a mountain alongside. When the clouds are down you stay down as well, and walk the official footpath. But when the sun shines, and the twitter of the skylarks is somehow more appealing than the rumble of the A82, here are Ben Lomond and Beinn Dorain, the charming Campsie Fells, and the mighty Mamores; and the best pub-to-pub in these islands, the high-level crossing of the Black Mount from Inveroran to Glen Coe. This is the WH Way idea – the same WH Way overnights, the pre-booked bunkhouse, the luggage transfer service – but higher excitements.

      Not all of those excitements are the ever-popular Munros. The first is the Lowland range of the Campsie Fells, rising to a mere 578m. Two later ones aren't tops at all, but high mountain passes: through the Lui group, and then over the Mamores. Another two are the lesser, and less-visited, hills called Corbetts. And even on popular Ben Lomond you're not just bagging it and coming back. You're crossing Ben Lomond to distant Inversnaid, and this takes you onto the grassy northern ridgeline where it's just you, the view, and some skylarks high above Loch Lomond.