Hello everyone!
I am AWP_Highlands (my Twitter name) and I work as a hydro-geologist for the Scottish Environment Protection Agency (SEPA) having previously worked for the Environment Agency. I moved to Inverness from Ipswich after falling in love with the Scottish countryside during a walking and skiing holiday which I also get to explore with my job. I am a keen and prolific hiker having completed both the West Highland Way and Speyside Way in the last 12 months and having completed, to date, 21 Munros (I plan to do them all over the coming 36 months). I have also scaled and completed many other peaks and treks in both Europe and North America.
I have posted on here as I want to know your opinions and thoughts on a hike I am considering undertaking. Next summer I plan to undertake all four official Scottish long distance routes consecutively i.e:
The Speyside Way
The Southern Upland Way
The West Highland Way
The Great Glen Way
The initial plan is to walk the Speyside way first travelling south then the Southern Upland way travelling West then the West Highland way North. At this point I feel it would be fitting to climb the Ben Nevis which will capture the essence of the trip and then travel North East on Great Glen way finishing in Inverness. I am going to call this hike:
The Highland Upland Glen Side Way
and will refer to it on twitter as:
#TheHUGSway500.
The route including the Ben Nevis accent and decent is 475 miles. Considering inevitable diversions and spurs the trip is likely to be in excess of 500 miles, hence this figure in the name.
I have researched whether anybody has done this before and I have not found any claims or references. Are any of you aware of anybody to have done this? I plan to do this hike for charity whilst delivering a environmental protection and respect message and depending on whether it, or a similar this has been completed will depend on how how I advertise and 'market' it. Furthermore I plan to extensively document the entire trip blogging, tweeting and digitally mapping the route with the view of promoting the views to the wider public.
I regularly tweet of my walking and ventures in the UK and digitally map all of my walking for statistical and spatial analysis, please checkout my Twitter page at:
https://twitter.com/AWP_Highlands
Anyway, I look forward to hearing from some of you. Many thanks! AWP
