Scotland - Great Glen Way (EaBo) - Venture

Summary

A 79 mile route that follows the Great Glen Way from west to east (EaBo) and completed over a 6 days camping trek (1 campsite, 1 hotel in Inverness and the rest wildcamps). Starts at Fort William, before following the picturesque Caledonian Canal to Loch Lochy.  Visits the area where Commandos trained during World War II. Follows a forestry road along beautiful Loch Lochy. Enjoy a bar meal and beer at the interesting and curious Eagle barge before following the disused railway line along Loch Oich. Re-joins the canal and this delivers you to the twee town of Fort Augustus where you can enjoy coffee and cake with all the other hundreds of tourists. The trail then starts the long haul along the 23 mile long, Loch Ness. There is an option of a high and low route from Fort Augustus to Invermoriston. The views from the high route down the length of Loch Ness are awesome. The trail goes high again after Invermoriston and takes you to the Viewcatcher sculpture. There follows more woodland walking along trails and forestry roads with occasional magnificent views down on to Loch Ness. The forestry roads lead to a tarmac one, that then takes you to the fairly large village of Drumnadrochit. The trail then heads off upwards into the forest again with those occasional magnificent views of Loch Ness. It eventually drifts away from the loch and heads towards Inverness using a single track road and woodland trails. There is an excellent high level view over Inverness before the path drops down into the city. A curious and beautiful parkland trail along its river eventually brings you to the Great Glen Way finish point near the city centre.

Notes

I probably only met a dozen people walking the Great Glen Way. The majority of these were walking it west to east. I chose to walk it west to east because I'd walked the West Highland Way before starting  the Great Glen Way and so I was able to concatenate the two trails together. The contrast between the two trails make a combined trip very enjoyable.

Due to fewer people, the Great Glen Way did have a sense of remoteness and wildness that maybe the West Highland Ways lost due to its popularity. Despite this feeling of remoteness, villages and roads never seemed to be too far away. 

I scheduled myself to do the walk in 6 days. The trail is well made and easy to walk. If I did it again, I'd do it in 5 days, maybe even 4 if I was in a rush. I found that I was walking a lot further than expected due to the quality of the trail. This meant that on the 5th day, I had a short walk (about 5 miles) out of Drumnadrochit to a wildcamp in the woods. This made the final day an easier distance (15 rather than 20 miles), but I did feel I was 'hanging about' a bit on the 5th day. Inverness looked quite an interesting place. On a 6 day itinerary I might have been better doing the walk in 5 days and spending the 6th having a look around the city. Unfortunately, I couldn't find a hotel within my price range at short notice, although this would have been possible if I'd arranged it in advance.

The trail lends itself to wildcamping. I hired a key from the Caledonian Canal authorities for their Trailblazer (different to the company that publishes the guides) campsites that gave access to their facilities (e.g. compost toilet). In the end, I only camped at one of these (Leitirfearn), since they never really fit in with the schedule I was keeping. If I did the walk again, I'd probably wouldn't hire a key, camp at the campsites, but not use the facilities. There were plenty of opportunities to wildcamp along the route, starting from Gairlochy.  If you want to use the Trailblazer facilities, contact Scottish Canals on 01463 72500. They send you a key through the post and you post it back to them after your trip. The following is their location at each end of the Great Glen Way:
Corpach Sea Office, Corpach, Fort William, PH33 7JH
Caledonian Canal Office, Seaport Marina, Muirtown Wharf, Inverness, IV3 5LE

There weren't clear opportunities to filter water on the first day (Fort William To Loch Lochy). After Clunes, finding water sources wasn't a problem.

There are good options to resupply your provisions at Fort Augustus and Drumnadrochit, and also a small shop at Invermoriston. I thoroughly recommend visiting the Eagle Barge at Laggan Locks for a meal and beer.

There is an option of a high and low level route between Fort Augustus and Invermoriston. I would highly recommend taking the high level route since the views along Loch Ness are awesome and probably the highlight of the walk for me. There is also a high level/low level route option in the Abriachan Forest (last day). Rather than following forestry roads on the low level trail, I took the higher one that follows a footpath over Carn na Leitre. This had open, elevated views and so I would recommend doing the higher level trail.

I used the Trailblazer Great Glen Way trail guide. It has sketch maps of the trail and very useful trail information. Harvey's Great Glen Way map would be an excellent format for this sort of trail. The route is well signed and it is difficult (although not impossible) to go wrong. I did download the gpx routes onto my phone, but it was very rare that I used these for actual route finding.