The Affric Kintail Way is a superb cross-country route for walkers and mountain bikers stretching almost 44 miles from Drumnadrochit on Loch Ness to Morvich in Kintail by Loch Duich. However, it has a four mile section that has to follow the A831 from Corrimony to Cannich due to difficulties with the terrain for an off-road route.

The Strathglass Marketing Group and Forestry Commission Scotland with help from local landowners found a route that could be developed to take this road-side section away and replace with a spectacular off road route using a mix of existing forest tracks and new build links on open hillside.

In order to develop this off road route, Strathglass Marketing Group employed the services of Philip Thompson Ltd to :-

• Survey the route proposal suggestions and prepare a report identifying sections with differing conditions and problems including access for the improvement methods.
• Identify nearby alternative routes if an improved route suggestion can be made to any of the proposed sections
• Suggest improvement specifications for each section of the path to improve the trails to either proper SNH Upland Path standard with minimum width of 1.2m or wider existing forest tracks.
• Mark the suggested route on the ground using either tape or flags
• Include suggestions for waymarking positions using the fingerposts and logos as of the main Affric Kintail Way
• Make suggestions for prioritising path improvement sections if limited budget is available
• Present path improvement information in Table form and with an accompanying map for each section in format usable for Highland Council Planning Permission Application.
• Prepare bill of quantities and suggested costs for path improvements section by section

The proposed route was split into nine different sections to cover this 12km off road trail route. Each section was surveyed and thereafter appraised to consider the costs and other factors such as planning and environmental issues. The desired outputs identified above were concluded in May 2019 when a Planning application for the works was granted by Highland Council. From this information the Client is now in the process of making fund applications with a view to constructing prioritised sections when resources allow.