A long hike is never really over.

We finished walking Scotland’s West Highland Way on September 18. It is still very much on my mind and I suspect it will be hanging around.

There were lessons learned. Both about myself and the trail. 

That’s really what it is mostly about in the end, isn’t it? Nobody walks – let’s call it 100 miles – and walks away not knowing something new about themselves.

Even if it is only whether or not you love toe socks.

By the way, I love toe-socks. I wore the same pair of injinji toe socks for 10 days (washed three times) and didn’t get anything approaching a blister. I really don’t mind slipping those tiny cotton condoms over each toe in the morning. “This little piggy went to Milngavie. This little piggy went to Bridge of Orchy. This little piggy went to Glen Coe. This little piggy went to Fort William. All these little piggies walked all the way home.”

Ritualizing the sockwear starts the day in a positive light.

I covered the toe socks with nice thick Merrell hiking socks. Besides their comfort, these Merrells do not have a little “L” or “R” stitched into them. I have some of those and while I suspect the L and R are BS, I embrace the tyranny of getting them on the correct foot.

Which I usually don’t do on the first try. It is like earbuds: How do you know which is for the left ear and which is for the right? I think an AI program waits until I stick one in my right ear before saying “left side.” Chinese manufacturing humor.

Pardon me while I obsess on my feet just for a few lines more. It is what we all obsess on most of all, isn’t it?

I brought three pairs of shoes with me – my favorite running shoes, a pair of Teva sandals, and a pair of Nortiv8 hiking shoes.

I could have managed the whole hike in the running shoes, which I’ve never run in once. Sadly, while backing up to take a photo, my left foot dropped into a stinky boghole and the sneaker came out a dark chocolatey brown. Aesthetics aside, the shoe stank. I apologize to everyone who had gear in the Kingshouse drying room. The corpse-like smell was my shoe. I discretely parked the sneakers behind the bunkhouse, said a tearful goodbye, and walked away without looking back.

The Tevas were so super comfortable at the end of each day. I could not justify hiking in them.

The Nortiv8s were a panic buy three weeks before leaving for Scotland. The bottoms of my feet hurt and every pair of hiking boots that I own – OK, both pairs – just made them feel worse.

The new boots worked out reasonably well, considering all that can go wrong with panic buys. As soon as I inserted two orthotic insoles into each. Granted the feet were riding a little high but between double inserts and double socks, my feet were happily ensconced in the comfort zone. And they were very good at keeping my feet dry.

And finally, KT tape. I know. I know. But it isn’t athletic voodoo. Really. 

Somewhere beside the shores of Loch Lomond, I did some damage to my right leg just above the ankle. I believe the technical term for it is “hurts like Hell.” I made it to Drovers Inn and – amidst a sneezing fit from all the dusty stuffed animals in the lobby – I called out for help.

Specifically, I called out to my wife Rose Alcantara who beat me to the inn by easily two hours. She happens to be a personal fitness trainer, a yoga and Pilates instructor, and a retired ballet dancer. If anyone knows about leg injuries, she does. And, yes, I married well above my station.

Rose expertly applied the KT tape to my leg, explaining the theory, muscle structure, and tendon placement. She also applied a piece of tape to my mouth to keep me from whinging. Totally unnecessary. She did the same for two more days. (To the leg, not the mouth.)

It worked. My leg felt tender but nothing of the debilitating pain I felt on the Loch Lomond segment.

Which brings me to sticks. Next to toe-socks, I love my hiking sticks.

It is just a fact that when you reach a certain age, parts of the body start to go – balance, upper body strength, lower body strength, ego, resolve, dignity, and speed. 

Did I miss anything?

Hiking sticks do not substitute for any of this – with two key exceptions: they helped with my balance through Loch Lomond and in the boggy detours around puddles in the middle of the trail. That’s one.

They also help immensely on uphill climbs, of which there are a few on the West Highland Way. Conic Hill and Devil’s Staircase? Scampered up those babies like a crazy mother … like a crazy man.

I love my sticks.

Clothing. I overdid it this time. I turns out, I only needed one pair of pants (with zipp-off legs), a pair of shorts, a handful of quick-dry t-shirts, one poncho, one jacket, and one pullover. One baseball cap is plenty. I am too embarrassed to tell you how much I brought. Let’s just say the strap on my canvas duffel snapped during the trip.

Slow walking. Perhaps the greatest lesson that I learned on the West Highland Way is that I must be one of the slowest walkers on this planet. And I am good with that.

Perhaps if I were 50 years younger, I would have considered hiking the West Highland Way in less than seven days, if only because I could. I’m glad I can’t.

My companions and I agreed to take 10 days for a variety of reasons. We started out together nearly every day but within a matter of minutes, they left me in the dust. 

That’s wrong.

There was no dust. They left me sniffing the heather. And gazing at ancient trees and even older mountains. And listening to the symphonic sounds of four little brooks, each sonically unique but in harmony. And talking to cows. But not sheep. Sheep are antisocial. And reading each and every historic billboard posted along the trail. And stopping for lunch, as much as several times a day.

If I were to take a superior attitude, I’d explain that I am walking mindfully, something I learned with the master, the humble Buddhist sage Thich Nhat Hanh. I walk wholly in the present moment, aware of every vibration that surrounds me, every color change in the glens, every puff of breeze, every scent from the forest floor, every pool and rivulet of water, every roadside flower, every pebble in the road.

I could say all that. And it would be true. As the Teacher said: “With each step you have to say: ‘I have arrived. I have arrived.’”

Thich Nhat Hanh’s full walking meditation poem:

I have arrived. I am home.

In the here, in the now.

I am solid, I am free.

In the ultimate, I dwell.

Over the decades, I have modified this poem:

I am here.

I am present.

I am home.

I have arrived.

Walking mindfully and spiritual awareness aside, the greater truth is that I am also old. Or older, I guess. I am now 74 years old and not sure how many long walks I have left in me. I prefer a slow eight-mile day to a 16 or 24. Because that is about what I am good for.

I prefer having my luggage shipped ahead every day, despite the constraints it puts upon spontaneity. (We used AMS, if you are wondering. Excellent folks and excellent service.) I’ve never done that before and I apologize for the superior attitude I may have projected in Portugal, Spain, or Ireland just because I carried my own body weight in an oversized backpack.

I liked walking with a light pack. And sticks. Never give up the sticks.

Also, 3 p.m. check-ins are a thing everywhere. Why? My guess is, that’s a good way to keep hikers in the pubs and cafes and restaurants for a few hours. One pub insider, pouring me a beer, confided that their rooms were clean and ready by 1 p.m.

“We’re not dummies,” she chortled.

Just so you know.

I was surprised at how much I envied the wild campers. I like the idea of walking until you have had enough then throwing up your tent and calling it a day. I recalled days from my youth waking up inside a tent with dew dripping down upon it, the air crisp and so fresh, and in those days, the smell of a campfire with hot chocolate brewing.

I sensed some of that as I passed hikers breaking camp for the day. Except midges. We didn’t have midges where I grew up in Central Pennsylvania. The mosquitoes scared them off.

I discovered IRN-BRU on the West Highland Way. Some say it is Scotland’s second most-popular drink.   A friend I met on the trail claims that a few sips of IRN-BRU work like the afterburners on a Space X rocket.

How can I not be tempted?

All I can say is that the orange-colored soda IRN-BRU tastes like Bazooka Bubble Gum and is not at all refreshing while you are walking. Did it give me a boost? It is caffeinated but any boost was purely psychological from my perspective.

By the way, IRN-BRU was invented in 1901, a full decade and a half before bubblegum. So when the question comes up on the trail, “Who had that taste first?” – you can answer with confidence.

Finally, I am a firm believer in angels on the trail. 

There are people who seemingly come out of nowhere and give you just the right amount of assistance or encouragement exactly when you need it. It has happened before and it sure happened on this hike.

On one part of the trail, I grew tired far short of my goal. I was half-way up a hill and leaning on my sticks. A fellow from North London walked up beside me and asked how I was doing. He stayed with me and we walked to the top of the hill together. He told me how much he loves the WHW, although he was just out for a “dodder” in the day.

We walked together until I had my resolve back, and my breath. 

When he turned off my path he said, “You have to just keep moving. You don’t give up. As long as you are moving you’ll get there.”

“Keep moving.”

That’s my new motto: Keep moving.

On another day, a more common occurrence: Someone actually walked with me to the end of the day’s hike. We had roughly the same pace and the same propensity for dawdling and taking lots of photographs. Karen and husband Craig from Maine, I thank you.

Just before reaching Devil’s Staircase, we met a hiker moving in the opposite direction. I asked him if he’d just crested the highest point on the entire Way. No, he was on his way to climb up a seam in a nearby mountain. A climber, not a hiker! We talked about hiking for a while and he left us with loads of encouragement. 

A pep talk, just when we needed it.

Lastly, after the hike was over, we found ourselves stranded in Fort William with a pile of AMS-tagged luggage. There wasn’t a taxi to be had and Uber hasn’t yet been invented as far as this town is concerned. Our AirBnB was simply too far away to walk.

A fellow overheard Kim dialing through the list of cabbies and took compassion on our predicament. Even though he was on a tight line to the airport, he bundled us all in his rental and whisked us up to Inverlochy. He wouldn’t even take gas money.

The next morning, Kim began dialing through a list of cabs provided by our host and those that answered were booked solid. And we had a train to catch. Finally, one cabbage agreed to “squeeze” us in between pickups if we met him at the curb in 20 minutes. He was good on his word and a knight in shining armor as far as we were concerned.

The moral is book as close to the center of Fort William as possible.

A lot of folks have asked, “What’s next Bob?”

“Nothing physical,” I assure them.

In fact, I am seriously considering an epic poem based on the West Highland Way and modeled after key elements in two poems by Henry Wadsworth Longfellow: “By the Shores of Gitche Gumee” and “Song of Hiawatha.”  

Some of his most descriptive language is startlingly similar to the West Highland Way experience.

If and when that happens, I promise to not burden you with such a post.

I promise.

If you have gotten this far, I’m very, very proud of you. You can do anything, like walk the West Highland Way. Go for it!

Here’s what a 10-day hike might look like.