Finding the middle of nowhere: hiking to Scotland's great wilderness

Memories of a winter trip to the most remote spot in Britain are a reminder of the raw beauty of the Highlands

It started with a warning: “Weaklings and novices must expect to perish.” Guidebook writer Alfred Wainwright didn’t mince his words when describing the glacially scoured tract of land known as Fisherfield in Scotland’s far north-west Highlands, between the tiny townships of Kinlochewe to the south and Dundonnell to the north.

It has earned the reputation of Scotland’s “great wilderness” and offers a cluster of vertiginous mountains, veined with a multitude of rivers; it is also home to a population of deer that easily outnumbers people.