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MacotheIsles wrote:it fairly puts me in mind of trying it myself one day when I get the time.
Toby Dammit wrote:MacotheIsles wrote:it fairly puts me in mind of trying it myself one day when I get the time.
Cheers Mac OTI. I have to say that the Great Glen Way just isn't as interesting as its West Highland rival. The majority of it is a fairly level stroll along the Canal and the shores of a couple of (admittedly beautuful) Lochs. It's only when you reach Loch Ness that the going gets tough, but even then the views are few and far between hidden by the trees.
It also lacks the camaraderie of the road that the West Highland offers. Where several stops on that trip end at just one pub and one hostel in the middle of nowhere putting all travellers in the one place together the Great Glen leads every night to much larger settlements or, in case of the first night at Glenlochy, no where at all. I actually met very few folk on the road who were walkers, it was far more popular with mountain bikers.
Most online guides reccomend you tackle it in six days and not the four I gambled on (I only had a limited time off work in which to give it a go). Even then the near 20 miles demanded of you on the last day, when you are drained from several days hiking already, with the hardest going too would be a bit of a killer.
The Way is superbly sign posted but I would advise you to take a map, something I didn't do. Then you won't have the psychological drag I suffered from of not knowing how long a metalled road section will last or forest trail. My second piece of advice is if you expect to be staying in hostels ALWAYS take ear plugs because there will be at least one bloke who snores like a sty full of pigs set loose in a megaphone factory. I did and it wasn't a problem in the two hostels I stayed at. My last piece of advice is don't spend the night in "nearby" Spean Bridge if you have to walk there and back.
The Loch Oich railway line section you mentioned is evocatively sign posted, with excellent image and text information boards which really bring to life now abandoned places, with odd glimpses of rail architecture slowly being reclaimed by nature. If I were to do just one section again it would be Laggan Locks to Fort Augustus (even though the Loch Oich bit was also the muddiest).
Toby Dammit wrote:My second piece of advice is if you expect to be staying in hostels ALWAYS take ear plugs because there will be at least one bloke who snores like a sty full of pigs set loose in a megaphone factory. I did and it wasn't a problem in the two hostels I stayed at
HollowHorn wrote:I was thinking that your 'nameless road' might have been 'Wade's' old military road
peter wrote:Had often thought of doing this walk but after description of forest slogging I don't think i'll bother.
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