Dog Falls and Coire Loch, Glen Affric

Glen Affric runs south-west from Cannich into the hills between Loch Ness and Kintail, and it holds the third largest area of ancient Caledonian pinewood in Scotland: a National Nature Reserve since 2002, a Caledonian Forest Reserve, a National Scenic Area and a Site of Special Scientific Interest, most of it bought by the Forestry Commission in 1951 and now held by Forestry and Land Scotland, the glen’s largest landowner with 176 square kilometres. The public road ends at Loch Beinn a’ Mheadhoin, which was dammed for the Affric hydro scheme of the 1950s, fed by a 5km tunnel and fitted with a Borland fish lift so the salmon could still pass.

The walk starts at the Dog Falls car park, about four miles up the glen from Cannich, which has a picnic area, toilets and a parking charge. Walkhighlands joins the three waymarked trails here into one circuit, which goes downstream first beside the River Affric, broad, shallow and rocky between the pines, then across the road to a natural balcony above Dog Falls, which are not high but run fast through a rock gorge, and on over a long wooden footbridge with the gorge in view upstream. The yellow trail then climbs through the pinewood, past the standing dead trees that a natural forest keeps and a plantation does not, to a ridge above Coire Loch, a small lochan where rare dragonflies breed, before a forest track leads back down to the car park. Ordnance Survey Explorer 415 covers the glen.

The circuit is 6km with 254m of ascent, one and a half to two and a half hours by Walkhighlands’ count, on clear waymarked paths that are rocky in places and steep around the loch. Roe deer are common, pine martens are said to be common too, and the pinewood holds crossbill and capercaillie, the latter almost never seen. It suits a family with children old enough for a footbridge and a climb, anyone staying in Cannich or Strathglass, and a day too wet for a mountain. A walker who came to Glen Affric for its mountains will find the circuit never leaves the woods, and the rocky sections stop a pushchair early. For a summit in place of a pinewood, Meall Fuar-mhonaidh is the other walk the Cannich hub offers, 9km and 535m of ascent above Loch Ness.