SCOTLAND


Look at a map of the British railway network. You will see for the most part it’s a tangle of mainlines and branchlines: a mesh stitched in a way to serve most corners of the island. Direct your gaze north, and you see the Scottish Highlands is an exception. It’s served by only a few lonely lines, trailing away from the rest of the network like loose threads from a ball of wool. Two of these threads — the West Highland Line and the Highland Main Line — wander in parallel north, come tantalisingly close to knotting together, then unspool in opposite directions. Between them is a blank expanse where no rails pass. A place where none of the cartographer’s ink was spent. I had long seen this part of the map — the


space between the lines — and regarded it as something rather like a gulf to be bridged. But in the 22-mile divide between Corrour station on the West Highland Line and Dalwhinnie station on the Highland Main Line, there is no public transport, no public roads. Nor are there marked footpaths that fully connect the two stations. Rather there lies some of the roughest, most remote terrain in Western Europe, a crossing obstructed by hulking mountains and passes of famous treachery. To make the crossing between those lines entails a two- to three-day expedition through the wild heart of the Highlands. A journey that must partly be done on two rails, partly on two feet.


88 NATIONALGEOGRAPHIC.COM/TRAVEL


We were a team of two: myself and my friend


Al. We first planned to make the crossing in early autumn — when leaves were reddening and stags rutting. Delays saw the trip pushed into November, when deer herds descended from the mountains, and the first frosts snuck into the glens. By the time our expedition set out, winter was making an unscheduled early arrival. Rime ice wreathed lineside fences. Heavy snowfall was timetabled to arrive soon after our northbound train.


Northbound through the night One spring night in 1873, the UK’s first sleeper service departed from London King’s Cross for Glasgow. A ‘sleeper’ train was an idea stolen from the United States — advertisements subsequently billed them as ‘The Most Interesting Route to Scotland’, offering a chance to ‘Travel in your Pyjamas’. The fortunes of sleepers waxed and waned over the following 150 years — victims of faster daytime trains and budget airlines, and easy prey to the politician’s axe. The modern Caledonian Sleeper departing from Platform One of London Euston station is a rare inheritor of this Victorian tradition. It takes much the same route as the 1873 sleeper, and retains some of its predecessor’s magic. In the dining car there is a foretaste of


Scotland: haggis and Tunnock’s caramel logs on the menu, and seven single malt whiskies


From left: The visitor book and fireplace at remote Ben Alder Cottage; descending from Ben Alder into the pass of Bealach Dubh Previous pages: Setting out from Corrour station towards Loch Ossian, with Bealach Dubh on the horizon and the Ben Alder massif to its right


Page 1  |  Page 2  |  Page 3  |  Page 4  |  Page 5  |  Page 6  |  Page 7  |  Page 8  |  Page 9  |  Page 10  |  Page 11  |  Page 12  |  Page 13  |  Page 14  |  Page 15  |  Page 16  |  Page 17  |  Page 18  |  Page 19  |  Page 20  |  Page 21  |  Page 22  |  Page 23  |  Page 24  |  Page 25  |  Page 26  |  Page 27  |  Page 28  |  Page 29  |  Page 30  |  Page 31  |  Page 32  |  Page 33  |  Page 34  |  Page 35  |  Page 36  |  Page 37  |  Page 38  |  Page 39  |  Page 40  |  Page 41  |  Page 42  |  Page 43  |  Page 44  |  Page 45  |  Page 46  |  Page 47  |  Page 48  |  Page 49  |  Page 50  |  Page 51  |  Page 52  |  Page 53  |  Page 54  |  Page 55  |  Page 56  |  Page 57  |  Page 58  |  Page 59  |  Page 60  |  Page 61  |  Page 62  |  Page 63  |  Page 64  |  Page 65  |  Page 66  |  Page 67  |  Page 68  |  Page 69  |  Page 70  |  Page 71  |  Page 72  |  Page 73  |  Page 74  |  Page 75  |  Page 76  |  Page 77  |  Page 78  |  Page 79  |  Page 80  |  Page 81  |  Page 82  |  Page 83  |  Page 84  |  Page 85  |  Page 86  |  Page 87  |  Page 88  |  Page 89  |  Page 90  |  Page 91  |  Page 92  |  Page 93  |  Page 94  |  Page 95  |  Page 96  |  Page 97  |  Page 98  |  Page 99  |  Page 100  |  Page 101  |  Page 102  |  Page 103  |  Page 104  |  Page 105  |  Page 106  |  Page 107  |  Page 108  |  Page 109  |  Page 110  |  Page 111  |  Page 112  |  Page 113  |  Page 114  |  Page 115  |  Page 116  |  Page 117  |  Page 118  |  Page 119  |  Page 120  |  Page 121  |  Page 122  |  Page 123  |  Page 124  |  Page 125  |  Page 126  |  Page 127  |  Page 128  |  Page 129  |  Page 130  |  Page 131  |  Page 132  |  Page 133  |  Page 134  |  Page 135  |  Page 136  |  Page 137  |  Page 138  |  Page 139  |  Page 140  |  Page 141  |  Page 142  |  Page 143  |  Page 144  |  Page 145  |  Page 146  |  Page 147  |  Page 148  |  Page 149  |  Page 150  |  Page 151  |  Page 152  |  Page 153  |  Page 154  |  Page 155  |  Page 156  |  Page 157  |  Page 158  |  Page 159  |  Page 160  |  Page 161  |  Page 162  |  Page 163  |  Page 164  |  Page 165  |  Page 166  |  Page 167  |  Page 168  |  Page 169  |  Page 170  |  Page 171  |  Page 172  |  Page 173  |  Page 174  |  Page 175  |  Page 176  |  Page 177  |  Page 178  |  Page 179  |  Page 180