Glen Coe and Glen Etive

1. Start You’ll be collected

   From Fort William or Fort Augustus. An hour down the A82 before the first stop if we skip the waterfall.

2. +

   Grey Mare’s Tail, Kinlochleven Optional 1 h 30

   A steep, rooty scramble to a big fall. Genuinely adventurous, genuinely optional.

   Details Close

   Up through the woods behind the village on a path that is steep, rooty and slippery when wet, to a waterfall coming down a cleft in the rock. It is not a stroll and it is not for everybody — this is the one stop on any of these days that needs proper footwear and a bit of appetite for it. Say when you enquire whether you want it in, because it adds an hour and a half and a detour off the A82, and there is no point pretending otherwise.

3. 01

   The Three Sisters 45 min

   The three ridges off Bidean nam Bian, from the layby everybody stops at.

   Details Close

   Beinn Fhada, Gearr Aonach and Aonach Dubh, three ridges dropping off the Bidean nam Bian massif into the glen. It is the view Glen Coe is famous for and there is no clever alternative to it — the layby on the A82 genuinely is the place. What we can do is be there at a sensible hour, and tell you what happened here in February 1692 while you are looking at it, which changes the view.

4. 02

   Glencoe Mountain Resort 1 h

   Coffee, a chairlift in season, and Rannoch Moor from the top of it.

   Details Close

   A ski centre in winter and a chairlift and a café the rest of the year, sitting on the edge of Rannoch Moor. The lift runs seasonally rather than always — it is worth checking on the day. The café does a proper view out over the moor whether or not the lift is turning.

   Glencoe Mountain — opening and lift

5. 03

   The Kingshouse 45 min

   An old drovers’ inn on the moor, with red deer usually loitering outside it.

   Details Close

   One of the oldest licensed inns in Scotland, standing on its own at the head of the glen where the West Highland Way comes through. There are almost always red deer around the building — they have worked out that people are soft — and Buachaille Etive Mòr stands over the whole thing. Lunch here or at the mountain resort, whichever the timing suits.

6. 04

   Glen Etive 2 h

   Twelve miles of single track down a dead end. The Skyfall corner is on it.

   Details Close

   The road turns off the A82 by the Buachaille and goes twelve miles down the glen to the sea, with passing places and nothing at the end but Loch Etive. Bond’s DB5 was parked on this road, and the corner is easy to find and worth the two minutes. The rest of it is better than the corner: a river with pools all the way down, deer on the hill, and almost no traffic because nobody drives twelve miles down a road that does not go anywhere.

7. +

   Loch Etive Optional 45 min

   The end of the road, and the slipway. Only if the day has run to time.

   Details Close

   Sea loch, mountains down both sides, a slipway and usually nobody. It is the full length of the glen rather than the pretty first half, so it is the first thing to come off if the morning has run long — and going all the way down and back is most of two hours from the A82.

8. End Back at your door

   Back up the A82 in the evening, with Loch Linnhe on the left.

Durations rather than times, on purpose. The order moves, stops get longer or get dropped, and the whole thing bends around the weather and around you — Dan will tell you on the morning what the day actually wants to be.