The Great Glen Way (Rucksack Reader)

Spiral-bound - September, 2001 - Rucksack Readers
Usually ships in 4 to 6 weeks
By: Jacquetta Megarry
ISBN: 1898481075

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Reviews by readers

Historic castles, spectacular views & the Loch Ness monster

Scotland's newest long distance path, the 73 miles/117km long Great Glen Way, links Fort William on the west coast and Inverness on the east coast, and leads walkers through some of Scotland's finest scenery. Highlights include views of Britain's highest mountain, Ben Nevis and two days' walking above Loch Ness, internationally famous as the home of the Monster. The walking certainly isn't for tough mountain climbers - you'll follow canal tow paths, forest tracks and paths for most of the distance.
An ideal companion is Jacquetta Megarry's 64 page, full colour, beautifully illustrated guide, published by Rucksack Readers. It's not a traditional, step-by-step guide but a guide to experiencing the way. The innovative spiral-bound format makes for easy use; it has clear, detailed maps of the whole route and the carefully designed notes are divided into five stages - the number of days most people are likely to take to do the Way.
The many features you'll see along the way and those that you can visit from the villages en route are briefly described.
The guide includes all the info you'll need to organise your walk - transport, food and clothing.
This is one of Scotland's great walks and is well within the reach of anyone who's reasonably fit - and who has a copy of the Rucksack Readers guide in their pocket.

Go for the walk, skip the book

I just finished walking the Great Glen Way in June 06 and it was an amazing trip. I thoroughly recommend it- especially if you have no rain like us!

Having used Rucksack Readers on other long-distance hikes and finding them to be very informative and useful, I did not hesitate to buy this as soon as the latest GGW edition was released in March. And I will admit, I did not really read it before we started, I just put it in my luggage and took off. I trusted it would be as good as the other ones.

And what a waste of luggage space this was! I question if the author ever even saw, much less walked the route. She constantly refers to things off route- or our favourite "below you, but unseen." The majority of the photos (yes, we were angry enough that we sat down and counted) were taken off the trail at detours or other side hikes. We called it the "useless book" because what information we wanted was never there and what was there was useless to us as we were not taking extra days off the walk to see things. And the one time there was something that could have been interesting to see, the way she writes i, it is not mentioned until you've gona a mile past- and who really wants to go back? The last day when the information actually seems to be finally useful, it ended up to be incorrect!

Rucksack Readers are normally really good walking guides so I am amazed they let such a useless piece of junk be released under their name. I will admit, the GGW is not as scenic and point of interest filled as the West Highland Way, but there was definitely information worth emparting. It would have been useful to be told about the hills and other terrain changes. Maybe about the trees we were walking through. Any history in the area? Or at least give us an idea of walk x miles to x.

Trail gossip pretty much corresponded with my disappointing view-everyone had it and everyone hated it. I heard that the Footprints Guide is pretty good. Several people had foldout maps they had gotten at Nevisport in Fort William. That little one page map, which cost about 3-pounds, was more useful than the whole darn book we had. It's even better to walk to the trail without this book- it's well waymarked and the book won't give you any extra knowledge. Just takes up room that could be used for food- which the book fails to make the point that there is really no food en route. Rucksack Reader desperately needs to pay some attention to this wonderful trail and bring its guide up to par with its other publications.

But go and walk the trail! It's 5-star experience- the book just isn't.