Into the Highlands

"By yon bonnie banks and by yon bonnie braes Where the sun shines bright on Loch Lomond. Where me and my true love were ever wont to gae. On the bonnie, bonnie banks O' Loch Lomond."

Though our ancestors brought us to Scotland, it was a song that lured us to the bonnie, bonnie banks of Loch Lomond. Far from the heartbroken lament of a Jacobite soldier awaiting his fate, fearing that he will see is homeland again only by the "low road" of death, our travels were light-hearted, a greeting, rather than a farewell. On the West Highland Way, we met Scotland.

The West Highland Way starts at Milngavie, a northern suburb of Glasgow, and meanders 96 miles north to Fort William. The light was low, dancing off of the water when we stepped off of the ferry at the Balmaha Boat Yard, and joined the foot path. While I had enjoyed the bustle of Edinburgh's Festival Fringe and Stirling Castle's revelry, I welcomed the chance travel on foot.

We took time to identify the trees along the path, smoothing their leaves between our fingers, sorting sessile from English oak. We ducked inside the visitor information booth at Milarrochy Bay, to ask about the trees. From the rangers, in their soft brogues, we learned that the maple we'd identified as field maple, (Acer campestre), was actually a species introduced by the Romans, the sycamore maple, (Acer pseudoplatanus). We had a good chuckle that that, we Americans whose non-native species originate with the arrival of European settlers, hundreds, not thousands, of years ago. But in evolutionary time, both are recent arrivals.

Our talk shifted to other species. We began to trade names and ecological niches the way kids trade baseball cards. The fireweed we'd seen in full, riotous bloom was native to both our homelands, but our grey squirrel, introduced the 19th century was wrecking havoc on the red squirrel population. Ready to spot a red squirrel, we walked on.

We stopped for the night at Sallochy Bay, making an appetizer of the blueberries that grew wild along the path, and watched European wrens and a jay after dinner in the long summer twilight.

We met Scotland's history as well, at Rowchoish the trail passed an old homestead, the remains of two structures sculpted of rock and emerald moss. I paused at the threshold asking permission to enter, then stepped lightly onto the carpet of moss and wood sorrel. Branches of the encroaching spruce plantation served as the only roof. A nearby boothy, or traveler's cabin, offered that in 1759, the settlement, with the boothy and our ruins, had included nine families. Where had they gone? Was this the work of the infamous highland clearances? We walked on.

Just before Rowardenen, a Red squirrel revealed itself as it chattered between mouthfuls of pine seed. One of only 121,000, we were lucky indeed to see it. An osprey, the first of our trip, wheeled and plunged into the lake after a fish. A rare sight here as well, but the same species that also calls New England home. Across the narrowing loch, we got our first taste of the highlands. To the north, the Munros (the Scottish name for mountains topping 3,000 feet) of Ben Lui, Ben Oss and Ben Dubhcraig. rose to craggy peaks. We walked on.

That evening, we sat out on the pebble beach tending our small cookstove, and watching the light redden on the far shore. A pair of fishermen trawled by, tossing words toward us over the boat motor. He tried again.

    "Aren't there any midges biting ye?" Though later encounters with midges would send us scrambling for long pants, long sleeves, and DEET, tonight we sat unmolested.

    "Nope" we shrugged.

    "No midges?" He pantomimed the pests with his fingers, assuming our negative response meant we hadn't understood. The boat motored southward.

    "Nope, none" we tossed back, beginning to grin.

    "Bastards" he shook his head with a slow smile, waving away the cloud from in front of his own face.

Our trail the next morning brought us to the mouth of the River Falloch, which feeds into the north end of Loch Lomond, from there we wove along the river. We walked past feral goats, who regarded us from their perches on a stone walls, long-haired and imperious. We walked above a series of waterfalls and rapids, and wandered under old, old oaks to the high country. On the slopes above stood scattered pines, their contorted, mammoth shapes revealing them to be old-growth remnants of the ancient Caledonian forest. We had walked, at last, into the highlands.