West Highland Way Winter Record

News Release / 03.03.2010

The North Face endurance athlete, Jez Bragg, has set a new winter fastest time for the West Highland Way, Scotland’s classic long distance route which runs 95 miles from Milngavie, a north Glasgow suburb, to Fort William in the Highlands.

In true winter conditions, with temperatures remaining well below freezing for the duration of the challenge, Jez battled a difficult mixture of ice on rock, snow and icy air temperatures over the course of his epic journey.

To achieve a true ‘winter’ record, Jez chose the weekend closest to the shortest day , starting at 0001hrs on Saturday 19th December, to also achieve a secondary aim to complete the route within a single day. Despite the adverse conditions Jez’s time for the challenge was an impressive 21 hours 14 minutes.

“I knew the success of the attempt would be heavily dependent upon the weather and my big worry was gearing support guys up to help but then having to cancel at the last minute due to the weather. There certainly were last minute panics because the timing of the challenge coincided with the start of the cold snap in the UK, with snow and icy conditions forecast. Ice proved the biggest obstacle in the end, particularly on the final sections across Lairigmore where the trail was covered in sheet ice. At times I was running down trails a foot deep with powder snow but thankfully it was light and crisp enough to not slow me down. If there had been much more then I would have been severely hampered.”

Jez’s winter West Highland Way records completes an impressive set of records on the West Highland Way which includes the summer record for the full route, and the records for the bottom and top halves, all of which are classic annual Scottish ultra distance races.