Читать книгу Not the West Highland Way. Diversions over mountains, smaller hills or high passes for 8 of the WH Way's 9 stages онлайн

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Maps

The West Highland Way is a wide, well-used path, or else a vehicle track, and is well waymarked. For anyone aiming for nothing more than the mere path, even the cheapest map will do. That cheapest map is produced by Footprint, at about £5. The best map of the path is Harveys West Highland Way at 1:40,000 scale. It’s printed on tough polythene, has proper contour lines, and covers a wide enough strip to include Ben Lomond (Routes 2 and 3), the Mamores crossing (Route 12) and the less interesting route up Ben Nevis.

For long hikes through the back country, you need a map that not only shows that back country but also the ground around – in case you wander into that ground and get lost (or more cheeringly if you’re inspired to wider explorations than originally planned). The very useful Harvey ‘ British Mountain Map series is at 1:40,000. ‘Southern Highlands’ covers the area from Rowardennan on Loch Lomond to Tyndrum. ‘Ben Nevis’ continues northwards, from Inveroran and the head of Loch Etive, with the exception of Route 21 to Rannoch Station. The map is printed on polythene so robust that one outdoor writer uses it as his groundsheet.