Cannich

Why base here

Cannich stands at the southern end of Strathglass, where the River Cannich and the River Affric meet on the east side of the village and run on as the River Glass (Wikipedia). It is the last settlement before Glen Affric, which holds the third largest area of ancient Caledonian pinewood in Scotland and has been a National Nature Reserve since 2002, run by Forestry and Land Scotland. Walkhighlands opens its page for the area by calling Affric the finest of all Scotland’s glens, a ranking this site cannot test but has no better candidate to offer.

The village is a creation of the hydro schemes as much as of the glen. Wikipedia records that a dam project in the late 1940s employed thousands of people with temporary accommodation centred on Cannich, and one Nissen hut still stands beside the shinty pitch. The North of Scotland Hydro-Electric Board built the Affric and Beauly scheme, with Fasnakyle power station near the village. Sleeping here buys access to the glen rather than a long list of hills: this site lists two walks from Cannich, one a pinewood circuit and the other a single Graham above Loch Ness, and the glen’s Munros, including Càrn Eige at 1,183m, the highest north of the Great Glen, are not written up here yet.

On foot versus by car

Nothing starts from the door. The Dog Falls circuit begins at a car park about four miles up the glen from the village, and Walkhighlands lists no public transport to the start. The River Affric car park at the end of the minor road, where the 1.5km River Affric and Am Meallan loop begins, is further still.

Meall Fuar-mhonaidh is a different drive. Its start is on the Bunloit road out of Drumnadrochit, so the route is the A831 to Drumnadrochit and then the hill road, and Walkhighlands again lists no public transport to the car park. Treat both walks as car days.

Practicalities

There is no railway; the Cannich entry on Wikipedia puts Inverness 26 miles (42km) away. Stagecoach route 17 serves the village and Drumnadrochit, and the route-planner Rome2rio shows a change at Drumnadrochit for Inverness bus station rather than a direct bus, so check Stagecoach’s timetable before relying on it, particularly out of season. Wikipedia lists a campsite, a chalet park and a village store, and it says the surrounding area has limited facilities, so shop before driving up the glen.

The second road out of the village runs to the Mullardoch dam in Glen Cannich, where Walkhighlands places the start of its 29.2km Loch Mullardoch Munros circuit. It records stalking on the estates south of the Mullardoch ridge from August to 20 October, with the main paths and ridges open to walkers, and gives the estate office as the number to ring.

With children

Dog Falls is the family walk. Its car park has a picnic area and toilets (Walkhighlands), the circuit is 6km with 254m of ascent, and it includes a long wooden footbridge over the gorge and a lochan where rare dragonflies breed. The ground is rocky in places, steep rocks surround Coire Loch, and Walkhighlands tells walkers to keep to the waymarked trail there, so it suits children who can manage a climb and a footbridge and not a pushchair. A shorter option is the River Affric and Am Meallan loop at the road end, 1.5km and 45 minutes by Walkhighlands’ figures, though it has no page on this site. Forestry and Land Scotland describes Loch Beinn a’ Mheadhoin as a lochside picnic spot with small paths through the trees and no waymarked trails; it released beavers there on 24 October 2025. Meall Fuar-mhonaidh is not a family hill: its last hundred metres are very steep, and the moorland ridge is boggy.