Among the mist in the Great Glen, Part 1

Some time has passed since Ashley and I were packing our way through the highlands of Scotland, but while our graduate school coursework is over for now, it’s time to fill in some of our adventures in Great Britain this spring.

As part of our two-week jaunt through Scotland over our Easter break, Ashley and I planned to hike a portion of the Great Glen Way. The Great Glen, or An Gleann Mòr in Scots Gaelic, is a long series of lochs in a deep valley formed by the transverse fault of two different tectonic plates. Sparing you, the reader, from what I’ve been told is likely the ‘boring geological details,’ suffice it to say that this long, straight valley cuts Scotland in two, with the Grampian Mountains to the south and the northwest Highlands to the north. It’s been a major travel route for millennia, with fairly easy walking along the rivers and lochs from the southwest to northeast. Myth asserts that Saint Columba (or Calum Cille in Scots Gaelic), the Irish missionary monk, travelled along the Great Glen during his time in Scotland. Various proponents of St Columba suggest during his time evangelising the Picts of Scotland, he walked the Great Glen towards Inverness in the north to meet with the pagan king Bridei.

The Great Glen has long been seen as an important point in controlling the highland clans, with three English-built fortifications along the route. Fort William, at the southwest edge of the River Lochy and Loch Linnhe, Fort Augustus on the south end of Loch Ness, and Fort George at the northeast end of the River Ness, near Inverness. During the Victorian period, the Caledonian Canal was constructed along the whole thing, linking the long, deep lochs and rivers of the Great Glen and allowing commercial and military vessels to move from the Atlantic Ocean to the North Sea without having to move around the dangerous waters to the north. It was also undertaken to help the highlanders out due to all the economic and social issues caused by the Highland Clearances which forced many a Scottish family to America and others, but that’s another story.

We set off from Fort William for a two-day hike with a mind to hit a midpoint along the Glen at South Laggan, where we’d then make our way down to Sterling to continue the tour. Our lovely B&B hosts in Fort William offered to drive us down from their hill-top home near Ben Nevis (the highest peak in the UK) to the ruins of Fort William itself. We then followed the trail through a few suburban paths and across railroad bridges to the ruins of Inverlochy Castle. The castle itself has an interesting history, having likely been built on a Pictish settlement destroyed by Vikings in addition to being an anti- Robert I (the Bruce) stronghold and the site of a 1431 victory for Clan Donald against the army of King James I. But we’re trending back to me and my historical ramblings. Long story short, the castle was unoccupied for a time and is now cared for by Historic Scotland. So, wanting to get at least 12 miles or so in for the day, we left.

When passed through a few of the other small towns that have cropped up along the southern end of the Caledonian Canal, through neighbourhoods with local pipe bands practicing in schools, and out at last to the first locks of the Canal. Here, we joined the old tow-paths on the flat banks of the water and hiked towards Neptune’s Staircase. While most of the Glen doesn’t change too much in elevation and thus never requires more than a lock or two, here at the end of the River Lochy, Neptune’s Staircase is a series of many many locks that spans 60 or so vertical metres and takes boats over an hour to traverse. It was also, for the most part, the steepest incline for us for the day.
It was a chilly, windy, and frequently drizzly morning along the banks of the canal. We passed the occasional canal boat, groups of friendly old Scottish people we made friends with, and even a horse-backed group of tourists. Eventually, a small note on our map indicated we were getting close to the Sheangain Aqueduct. During the construction of the Canal, a few rivers actually have to be crossed over, so the man-made canal flows on bridges over smaller natural streams and rivers. We decided to drop our packs and head down a small footpath to see the base of the aqueduct, the second largest on the canal, for ourselves.

From here, it was trudging back on, with the shrill wind letting up a bit but more rain (read: it’s the highlands of Scotland in March).


Making good time, we hit upon the Moy Swing Bridge and little town of Gairlochy by mid-afternoon. The Moy Swing Bridge is quite cool, in that it’s the oldest original swing bridge still on the Canal, in which the keeper still lives in a cottage by the canal. When a boat comes, the keeper swings open one side of the bridge, then hops in a little Zodiac raft, boats across the canal, and opens the other side for the boat to pass.
There wasn’t much to Gairlochy, but here our trail diverted off the Canal tow-paths and up the hill slopes as we came southern end of the long, narrow Loch Lochy. For the rest of the day and the entirety of the following day, we’d be keeping the loch on our right as we hiked along its 9 miles. It’s not as deep as Loch Ness (only 230-something feet), but, not to be outdone by its more famous cousin, is home to its own plesiosaur/mythological creature known as “Lizzie.”
Also, I spied the partially sunken hull of a ship along its banks.

We worked our way up and up, along the A82 highway for a while, but always keeping the Loch on our right and in our sights. Unfortunately, we were losing the daylight and had also made better time than we had planned. So, casting about for a place to pitch our tent (in Scotland, you can camp on anyone’s land or fields for a few days legally). However, most of the land for the next foreseeable stretch was owned by the Scottish Forestry Commission, and was posted as off-limits due to logging. So what did we do? Found a quiet, secluded hummock of land, sheltered by the gentle swells of the ground from the ever-persist wind off the loch on one side and view from the highway on the other. With the threat of more rain and the possibility of snow coming on, we sent up camp.

And had this view from our tent:

With the sunlight fading and the chill really coming on, we made ourselves a quick warm dinner and settled into our tent to read by head-torch (headlamp) and warmed ourselves with little sampler bottles of Scotch we had picked up in Fort William a few days before.
Next time, we’ll continue our hike on the shores of Loch Lochy and explore some cool points of interest along the way to our destination of South Laggan.