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<\/a><\/p>\nThere is no single route across the country like the Appalachian Trail or the Pacific Crest Trail. \u00a0\u00a0 Instead, hikers create a route from a variety of starting materials–footpaths, ATV trails, ancient “drovers trails” and “stalkers trails” used for herding and hunting, logging roads, paved roads, even highways. \u00a0Some routes feature stretches where there are no paths at all. \u00a0In those areas walkers must navigate by line of sight, map and compass, or GPS.<\/p>\n
The route I took in 2014 and 2015 were borrowed en bloc<\/em>\u00a0from a 10-year veteran, Roger Hoyle. \u00a0I learned of the Challenge when I met him in Moscow in October 2015. \u00a0His son was a foreign correspondent there and I was visiting two foreign-correspondent colleagues from The Washington Post. \u00a0I sat next to him one night at dinner. By the time the coffee was finished I’d decided to give it a try. \u00a0I could not do this, and would not have tried, without Roger’s transatlantic hand-holding.<\/p>\n The chief service of the event’s organizers (all volunteers, of course) is to give advice on route-design. \u00a0That is done by experienced hillwalkers, some of whom appear to have total recall of the landscape. \u00a0A route, with “foul-weather alternatives” for sections where rains can make rivers \u00a0uncrossable, must be submitted three months in advance and be approved. \u00a0Walkers are also obliged to report in by phone to Challenge Control four times during the walk. \u00a0One-quarter of the walkers go alone. \u00a0Given the nature of route design, however, meeting people along the way is inevitable (not to mention desirable). \u00a0That was my experience anyway.<\/p>\n In 2014 I took a classic route, from a fishing village called Mallaig to St. Cyrus. In 2015, I started farther north, in the village of Strathcarron, finishing in Stonehaven. \u00a0Both routes are shown on this map.<\/p>\n In 2016 I left from a place between the two previous starting points, angled northeast to Inverness, and then crossed along the Moray Coast to Fraserburgh. It is a beautiful stretch of coastline, with sandy bluffs, wide flat beaches, and sheer rock cliffs. \u00a0The beaches were the site of the early rehearsals for the D-Day invasion. I wanted to see that and, if possible, talk to people who remember those days. I found one.<\/p>\n I then took two years off.<\/p>\n In 2019, I took a route in the far-southern edge of the permitted territory for the walk. I left from Ardrishaig, on Loch Fyne, and ended at Lunan Bay, a huge crescent beach south of Montrose. Most of the route was cribbed from Jean Macrae Turner, a retired surgeon and wonderful person whom I’d seen on two earlier crossings. At age 79 she was the senior woman finisher in 2109.<\/p>\n