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![\"\"](\"https:\/\/aweewalk.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2019\/04\/Screenshot-2019-04-22-14.45.42-907x1024.png\")
This year I’m starting from Ardrishaig, Number 13, in the lower left corner of the map. <\/p>\n\n\n\n
In my first crossing I started from Maillaig, Number 7, which is midway up the West Coast. The second time I left from Strathcarron, Number 2, the second-most northerly departure spot. The the third time, in 2016, it was from Torridon, Number 1, the most northerly. <\/p>\n\n\n\n
Here is a detailed view of the route, in pink. The blue sections are “foul-weather alternatives” that you have to file (and use) in case weather doesn’t permit following the trackless or high-altitude intended route. Montrose, on the east coast, is where we all gather for a post-walk banquet. You don’t have to get there by foot. Most people put their feet in the sea somewhere else, and get to Montrose by bus or car.<\/p>\n\n\n\n This crossing will be less wild than the previous ones. I am staying in B&Bs or guest houses five nights\u2014which is either a concession to age or an adjustment to a civilized route, take your pick. Many Challengers would call me soft.<\/p>\n\n\n\n The route borrows heavily from one taken in 2011 by Jean Macrae Turner, a wonderful Scotswoman whom I met on my first or second Challenge. She\u2019s a surgeon, now retired, who\u2019s done the Challenge with her husband, Allan (also a surgeon), and one of her sons, but in recent years has been doing it alone, as she is again this year. Her 2011 route had a historical theme, passing Neolithic and Bronze Age sites and ruined castles, which appealed to me. I\u2019m thankful for her advice.<\/p>\n\n\n\n While I\u2019m at it, let me once again thank Roger Hoyle, a As I write this I\u2019m in Glasgow, by now one of my favorite places. <\/p>\n\n\n\n It\u2019s the Baltimore of Scotland\u2014once a great builder of ships, the medical capital of the country, home to unwell-known art museums, post-industrial, full of row houses and heroin deaths. <\/p>\n\n\n\n I\u2019m staying at the same low-rent hotel\u2014the Victorian House\u2014that I\u2019ve visited in the past. It\u2019s one block from the Glasgow School of Art and the beleaguered Mackintosh Building, of which you\u2019ll learn more if you stay tuned.<\/p>\n\n\n\n I\u2019m trying to make this crossing lighter. I\u2019ve spent hundreds of dollars to buy dozens of ounces in weight-reduction. I have a new backpack\u2014my 20-year-old one developed a tear from overeating\u2014as well as new \u201cwaterproofs\u201d (as they call rain gear over here), a new stove, and a few other items. <\/p>\n\n\n\n I\u2019ve just mailed four envelopes overstuffed with freeze-dried food and topo maps to places I\u2019m stopping at along the way. I\u2019m carrying two\u2014two\u2014canisters of propane fuel for the stove because the camping store man convinced me that where I was going they wouldn\u2019t have any. (Macbeth, take note.) And of course the five pounds of electronics, which is my concession to me (and you, if you\u2019re still listening). <\/p>\n\n\n\n That said, my backpack is lighter this time (even without all the food I\u2019ll be carrying) than it was in the past.<\/p>\n\n\n\n Whether it\u2019s light enough: we\u2019ll see.<\/p>\n\n\n\n In the meantime, there are things to see and do in Glasgow.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" I\u2019m back to do The Great Outdoors Challenge a fourth time. As some of you may know, this is a two-week backpacking hike across Scotland. About 300 people leave from various places on the West Coast on the same day\u2014Friday, May 10 this year\u2014and finish 13 or 14 days later at various places on the […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[17],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-3098","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-scotland4","post-preview"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/aweewalk.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3098","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/aweewalk.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/aweewalk.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/aweewalk.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/aweewalk.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=3098"}],"version-history":[{"count":12,"href":"https:\/\/aweewalk.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3098\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":3125,"href":"https:\/\/aweewalk.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3098\/revisions\/3125"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/aweewalk.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=3098"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/aweewalk.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=3098"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/aweewalk.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=3098"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}
<\/p>\n\n\n\n![\"\"](\"https:\/\/aweewalk.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2019\/04\/fullsizeoutput_13c5-1024x549.jpeg\")
retired lawyer and Englishman whom I met by chance in Moscow in 2013, for telling me about the Challenge and advising me on routes, gear, and people in each of my crossings. I couldn\u2019t have done this without him.<\/p>\n\n\n\n![\"\"](\"https:\/\/aweewalk.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2019\/05\/ABB0AA15-D81F-46D7-995C-F24EA992F6D9-1024x768.jpeg\")