Chris Townsend in TGO wrote recently about his intention to walk the Scottish watershed. Chris was inspired by Peter Wright’s Ribbon of Wilderness, after being dismissive about Dave Hewitt’s earlier Walking the Watershed. I found some critical reviews of Wright’s book, but I have not read it, so can’t comment, but I was bowled over with Hewitt’s book and can’t understand why Townsend was not enthusiastic.
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Walking the Watershed - David Hewitt (ISBN - 0 9522680 1 9)
What is it really like, to experience a serious long distance backpack?
Read Dave Hewitt’s book and you will absorb the whole atmosphere.
This is an honest and comprehensive journal of Dave’s 80 day, 850 mile walk of the Scottish watershed, which included over 100,000 metres of ascent and 45 Munros. The walk was done in 1987.
Writing a daily account without endless repetition is not easy, but my interest never wavered due to an identifiable and pleasing style, with avoidance of clichés, and frequent use of original and often amusing similie and metaphor.
Dave fearlessly records his low points, and the doubts he had from time to time as well as giving us uplifting word pictures of the best of Scotland’s landscape.
It is interesting to learn that a long trip like this takes on a different dimension which only becomes apparent after a couple of weeks or so, as you begin to see it as a way of life, with a relevant adjustment to the mental approach.
Dave describes the rambling thoughts and motivations and uncertainties drifting through the mind as he plods along, and much of this will, I am sure, be familiar to fellow backpackers.
Although walked in 1987 the book was not published until 1994, and I do wonder about the amount of detail. Either Dave kept an unusually comprehensive journal, or he has a phenomenal memory.
If you have climbed a good number of Munros, or completed the lot, you will have the added attraction of visiting familiar venues and comparing notes, and sparking off many memories, but its best attribute is in conveying palpably what it is like, in all respects, to trek through wild landscape for an extended period with the sometimes pressure of achieving a goal you have set for yourself.
