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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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.