My West Highland Way Hike

 
On our month-long vacation to Europe in 2024, we hiked three trails - Kungsled in Sweden, West Highland Way in Scotland, and Fishermen's Trail in Portugal for a total of around 300 miles.
The West Highland Way is a very well-known and highly traveled route across the Scottish highlands, starting in the town of Milgavnie (pronounced Mill-Guy) in the south and ending at Fort William 100 miles north. A bonus of this trail is that it passes by the base of Scotland's tallest mountain, Ben Nevis, on the last day, so hikers can climb to the top as an extra day hike.
We hiked from August 25 to September 3, 2024.

Journal   Map   Gear   Food   Expenses   Stats
 

My Gear

Some of my original lightweight equipment that I've been using for 14 years is showing its age, so I finally invested in some serious new gear for this European adventure. My wife heard about ZenBivy quilts and convinced me we both needed one. Also, after literally hundreds of nights of us, the zipper on my BearPaw Wilderness Designs tarp tent has become a pain to keep closed so we purchased a TarpTent Stratospire Ultra shelter made of a new 'nearly Dyneema' material they call 'Challenge Sailcloth Ultra TNT'. I'm very pleased with the tent and quilts after these first 4 weeks of use.

Item	Oz	$$	Notes
EB Stowaway pack	12.7	$0	This is a small, frameless 20L pack that can be compressed down into its own little packet when not used. We both had identical packs. We needed these for airplane travel and had to carry them in our backpacks for the entire trek. They were used a lot for our city exploring between trail hikes.
G4 backpack	16	$0	made myself from pattern. Comfortable, light, and plenty of room.
Sleeping
shelter	40	$550	TarpTent Stratospire Ultra. It worked wonderfully. The material is completely rainproof, does not stretch like silnylon, and is almost as light as Dyneema.
quilt	35	$330	ZenBivy 10-degree Light Quilt, Large, 800 fill down. Our new ZenBivies worked just great, very warm, packed small.
sleeping pad	10	$0	I just used an old blue cell foam pad. It gives structure to my frameless pack, weighs little, and is cheap and indestructible.
Cooking
fuel	7	$10	Bought a 100g canister in Milgavnie since we couldn't carry on the plane.
cook kit	8	$0	Snow Peak, pot w/lid, windscreen, and 2 lighters.
food cozy	.8		insulates food package while the hot water is heating it up. Cheap, saves fuel and works super.
food	5 lbs.	$0	6 dinners, snacks and bars.
Water
water filter	5	$0	I carried my Sawyer Squeeze, bags, and backflusher, but didn't use it. Potable water was available every day.
water bottle	.6	$0	two .6L disposable bottles - cheap, easy, light.
Clothes
Pehrson Lodge baseball hat	3.5	$0	wore it every day
Fishing shirt	9	$0	well-used, long-sleeve, light, synthetic. It refuses to wear out.
2 Paka t-shirts	12	$50	made with alpaca hair to reduce smells. Seems to help.
shirt	12	$0	nice enough button short-sleeve shirt to wear in towns.
Kuhl zip-off pants	17		tough and comfortable.
zip-off pants	18		no-name extra pair for city wear and back-up
Darntough socks	5.5		Brought 2 pair. I'm on my 4th free replacement set now. Soft, strong, and comfortable, but I wear through them every year or so.
underwear	3.6		3 pair
shoes	28	$25	My regular Ozark Trail trail shoes from Walmart. I still haven't found anything more comfortable.
bandanna	2.0	$1	2 of them, too many uses to list here.
rain jacket	18	$30	Frogg Toggs jacket and pants.
rain poncho	4	$28	off-brand poncho that I wound up wearing a lot.
Electronics
cellphone	6		for daily blogs and pics. Google Pixel 5. This is my watch, alarm, phone, camera, gps.
tracker	4.2		pings to satellite with my location. Batteries last about three weeks when on for 12 hours/day.
headlamp	.5	$0	Awesome photon light. One set of batteries lasts about 10 days.
batteries	4.0	$15	Extra 3 AAA lithiums for tracker, and 4 CR2016 coin batteries for headlamp - purchased online for pennies.
Other
trek poles	14	$0	Still using Walmart pair that refuse to die
1st aid kit	3		basic personal items - bandaids, pain relief, tape, liquid skin, CPR mask, gauze pads, allergy meds, ...
compass	1.1
knife	1.1		tiny, single blade.
misc.	5		2 garbage bags, whistle, clippers, thermometer, and other small items
stickers	2		Taking some Hiking Dude stickers to hand out to folks I meet.
Total	~24 lbs total weight +2.5lb of water

My Food

We started this trail with 6 dry meals left over from our Kungsleden Hike the previous week. With all the easy restaurants along this trail, we only cooked our own meals twice so I get to still carry meals on to our next hike in Portugal.

My Expenses

Still figuring it out.

---

 

West Highland Way Statistics

Location	Western Scotland in the highland area.
Distance	about 100 miles - officially 154km.
Total Elevation	The total cumulative elevation climbed is estimated to be about 10,000 to 12,000 feet.
Terminus	South: Milgavnie North: Fort William
Highest Point	1798 feet at the top of Devil's Staircase.
Lowest Point	25 feet at the North terminus.
Map	from the official West Highland Way website.
Terrain	The majority of the trail follows double-wide trail that was once roadway. These old 'military road' trails are similar to old logging roads in the western US, but were built in the 1700s to ease travel of British soldiers in case of further uprisings after the Jacobite Rebellion. There's details on wikipedia. They make for many miles of easy strolling through the countryside. The general geography is open, rocky ground interspersed with forest. The trail usually follows the easiest path regarding elevation change, skirting the shore of long Loc Lomond and staying in low valleys between high, bald mountains most of the distance. There are only three hills to climb over - Conic Hill, Devil's Staircase, and a climb out of Kinlochleven.
History	Opened in 1980, the West Highland Way is Scotland's first long distance trail. Tom Hunter from Glasgow dreamt up the idea after WWII with the hopes of protecting the environment around Loc Lomond. Serious work on it began in the 1970s.
Challenges	Our biggest challenge was the weather. We just had very poor luck with being there during 7 days of rain during a time of year that typically has much better weather. The trail itself was very muddy in spots from the heavy rain. The rain also caused small streams to flood over the trail, and the trail to be a stream in one long stretch. Lac Lomond's water level was quite high, even covering the trail at one spot. Elevation is not high enough to cause problems, and the Devil's Staircase as the most difficult section was, as bad as it sounds, not terribly long nor steep. Midges are supposed to be a big nuisance, but maybe the wind and rain kept them at bay because they were not a problem for us.
Time Window	Typically May through September.
Time to Hike	It typically takes 6 to 8 days to hike the trail, but the record is less than 14 hours. Inns, hotels, and campgrounds along the way are typically full all during the summer hiking season, but wild camping allows freedom to stop for the night whenever you like.
Thru-hiker Tally	No list is kept yet, but it's estimated about 45,000 people a year complete the trail.

---

 

Trail Links

Info	WHW - official West Highland Way site.