As you are well aware minimum requirements to mine nodes was removed in patch 5.3 making level up your gathering professions easier.
Therefore, you can go 1-700 following old routes if you’d like.
One of the biggest changes in Warlords of Draenor is there are no more profession trainers. To improve your skill level simply learn the profession you want, after killing a few mobs a scroll should drop that boosts your maximum skill level to 700, all that’s left for you to do is to get it there.