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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South ridge of Binnein Mor

Indeed, the usual response to Not the West Highland Way isn’t so much ‘Not the what?’ as ‘Oh I did that ages ago.’ My friend David Didn’t the West Highland Way in May 1990, under ‘more snow than I was planning on for a solo trip’. David enjoyed all four of the Blackmount Munros before a night at Kings House with a disconcerting waterbed effect under his tent as the ‘bathtub-type’ sewn-in groundsheet operated as the name suggests (except with the water being on the outside). He continued, much more energetically than anything in this book, over Buachaille Etive Mor, the sky-piercing scramble of the Aonach Eagach, and nine of the Mamores.

As for me, Not the WH Way swam into my mind in 1993 in response to a phone call from eastern Europe at an unexpected time of the year. ‘I have time off from the shop’, said Alois my Czech friend. ‘How is Scotland in February?’

February is not necessarily Scotland’s best. So I planned a five-day journey for minimum misery. Loch Lomond to Fort William offers pubs, hostels and shops. There are plentiful escapes by cosy Citylink and Scotrail. There’s a path alongside Loch Etive that’s been on my Landranger for the last ten years without my doing anything about it. And at worst, there’s a heavy-rucksacked trudge up the West Highland Way with the sleet, quite possibly, coming from behind.