Glencoe

Glencoe is a small village of a few hundred people at the north-western end of Glen Coe, where the River Coe meets the tidal Loch Leven. Its setting does most of the work: this is one of the most dramatic glens in Scotland, the remains of an ancient supervolcano later carved by ice, hemmed in by the Three Sisters ridges of Bidean nam Bian on one side and the Aonach Eagach ridge on the other. The glen is also the site of the Massacre of Glencoe in 1692, when government soldiers billeted with Clan MacDonald turned on their hosts, a history the NTS visitor centre covers in some detail.

Why base here

Glencoe village is small and quiet, with limited services, but it sits where the glen’s mountain scenery meets Loch Leven’s coastal one, and it puts the whole length of Glen Coe, arguably the most concentrated stretch of accessible big-mountain scenery in Britain, within a short drive. It works well as a base for a mix of easy days and hard ones: gentle forest walking in the village itself, and some of Scotland’s most serious hillwalking and scrambling a few miles up the glen.

On foot versus by car

Glencoe Lochan and its forest trails are walkable from the village. Everything else that makes the glen famous, the roadside views of the Three Sisters and Buachaille Etive Mòr, the start of the Devil’s Staircase at Altnafeadh, and Glencoe Mountain’s ski and bike centre, sits several miles up the A82 and needs a car; there is no public transport along the glen itself beyond the Citylink coach on the trunk road.

Practicalities

There is no railway station in the glen; Fort William, about 16 miles north, is the nearest. The NTS visitor centre has the main car park and, in poor weather, is a useful source of route and access information. Much of the walking above the glen floor is serious mountain terrain: the Aonach Eagach ridge and several of Glen Coe’s other peaks are among the most exposed scrambles in Scotland, a different proposition entirely from the glen’s lochside forest paths.