5 Things I'd Do Differently Hiking The West Highland Way

Hey y'all, Dixie here. Today I want to talk about some things that I would do differently if I was to hike the West Highland Way again. I'm gonna go ahead and throw the disclaimer out that you may or may not hear some boat noises in the background. I'm in Glenville, North Carolina on like a mini girls trip vacation and it is a warm summer day so folks are out on the water. But it makes for a pretty backdrop so anyway let's get started. So if I could do my trip differently first things first I would book a longer trip. You can wild camp and bring all of your backpack and stuff and treat it like a normal backpacking trip but knowing that I was gonna be six months pregnant it was smarter to carry less weight on my back and also to have some structured shelter and a bed where I could relax at the end of a long day of hiking. If you decide that you also want to do the same thing and stay at different ends along the way you can book all of that yourself but I decided to not have to deal with the logistics of that to go with a travel company who does the West Highland Way trips frequently and the one I went with was Max Adventure. When I signed up for this they have like different trip length durations so I went with the nine day eight night trip. I made the mistake of not realizing that the day you arrive into town and sleep before you start your trip counts as day one so that gave us eight days to do our 97 mile trek and that was just in my opinion spreading myself a little bit thin especially considering you know the being pregnant. Even not having those additional physical challenges I would have rather spread the trip out and had more time I just feel like it would have been more enjoyable I mean obviously I was able to do it but it made things feel more rushed and especially for me stopping to record every little thing I see along the way. So I would have at least opted for having nine days to hike but maybe even really having ten days to do that 97 miles so like an 11 day 10 night trip. I heard about one girl who booked a four day trek so I just I can't even imagine she ended up having to quit because it was just way too much so I would say definitely don't underestimate the difficulty of the West Highland Way even if you happen to look at the elevation profile and go oh that doesn't look so bad. Next and kind of in the same vein I would split up the Loch Lomond section. The Loch Lomond section of the West Highland Way is by far in my opinion and from what I hear from others to the most physically challenging section of the trek. A lot of folks will talk about double staircase but that was honestly just like any other little climb to me it was not that challenging but the Loch Lomond isn't so much that it's like whoa like a really steep long climb but it's just rocky, rooty, the pointless up-and-downs all along the side of a lake while you have some spectacular views it just beats the crap out of you physically and even if I didn't have a longer trek even if I was forced to do it you know in the amount of time that I did in eight days of hiking I would have chosen shorter mile days maybe split the Loch Lomond section in half and have longer days on the less challenging sections but I ended up doing a 15 mile day in the Loch Lomond most challenging area so a really long day the hardest terrain it would just be smarter to split that up so even if I was booking with a lodging company I would try to specifically speak with them and request that that section needs to be split up. The next thing I would change is to bring an eye mask or a buff. I feel like I did pretty good with all of my gear except this was the only thing that I in a way longed for or I felt like would have been a good idea. The days in Scotland while we were there mid-June were just so long like the daylight hours I would go to bed at maybe 10 p.m. and it would still be pretty light outside I'd wake up to pee at 3 a.m. and it would still be pretty light outside so even staying in a room at an inn because there is no air conditioner in any of the places that we stayed because Scotland stays pretty cool even in the summer I wanted to have the curtains open to allow a breeze to come through so there was basically a choice of either have more light coming in the room in my eyes or sweat. I can imagine if you're sleeping in a tent that this would be even worse so I would definitely recommend having something to cover your eyes to help you sleep if you're there during the time where there are just long daylight hours. My next recommendation is maybe it would be better to go do this hike in late May instead of when I went in mid-June. The reason I say this we did get pretty lucky with the weather and the midges but in late May there is typically less chance for bad weather rainy weather usually the midges aren't out as badly like I said we did get really lucky I only had like two significant rainy days and two instances where I had to put on a head net but I feel like most of the time in mid-June it is more typical to get more rain and have more experience with midges. Also in late May typically it's not as crowded or populated on the trail I really didn't feel like the West Highland Way itself was just overrun with people I mean we'd see folks out there but it really wasn't as many as I thought would be there in mid-June but I do remember that some of the lodges in town were full and had no vacancy signs up and then I know even when we were booked by Max Adventure that one of the places that we were supposed to stop for the day was already full because they had to shuttle us from there like 10 to 15 miles to another town so that we had a place to lodge. So whether there were just that many hikers out or it was just a popular time for tourists it was in town pretty full in mid-June. And finally I guess the only other thing that I might have changed is to go when I'm not pregnant. Now before anybody thinks that I have like some regret about being pregnant I don't and I certainly have enjoyed staying active and backpacking while I've been pregnant I think that that's important but if I hadn't been pregnant I certainly could have enjoyed some of the local brews maybe tried some scotch while I was in Scotland and that would have been nice after a long day of hiking but of course being pregnant I opted out of any of that. Also if I hadn't been pregnant and I had been more willing to carry all of my backpack and stuff with me at that point that would allowed me to have more flexibility and break up some of those longer stretches like the Loch Lomond stretch you know I could have been like you know I'm done for the day this is a nice camping spot so I'm I'm gonna stop. But having that schedule that I had to get to my lodging place made things you know less flexible and in some ways a bit more stressful. So anyway those are the minor tweaks that I would have made to my trip just to make it even better than it already was. If y'all have done the West Highland Way and you have any suggestions for folks who are watching to make sure you know they do as you say not as you did then please feel free to leave those suggestions in the comments below. Thank y'all so much for watching if you found this video useful don't forget to share it with a friend and we will see y'all next time.