AA Breakdown Cover
Loyalty benefits
5-star car insurance
Enjoy 5-star-rated insurance and access to offers from AA Rewards, which saved our members more than £4.5m in 2010. What's more, many new customers pay £250 or less to insure their car with the AA.
Get a quoteRetrieve a quote
Savings
Whatever you want from your savings, whether you want to set a little something aside for a rainy day or you're planning for the future, we can help you make the most of your savings.
More information
Ski holidays
Severe weather
A rugged waterfall walk into the hidden hollow where the MacDonalds hid their stolen cows.
Distance 2.7 miles (4.4km)
Minimum time 2hrs 15min
Ascent/gradient 1,050ft (320m)
Level of difficulty Hard
Paths Rugged and stony, stream to wade through, 1 stile
Landscape Crags and mountains
Suggested map aqua3 OS Explorer 384 Glen Coe & Glen Etive
Start/finish NN 168569
Dog friendliness Dogs must be reasonably fit and agile
Parking Lower of two roadside parking places opposite Gearr Aonach (middle one of Three Sisters)
Public toilets Glencoe village
Write a review of this walk
© The Automobile Association 2008. © Crown Copyright Licence number 100021153
1 From the uphill corner of the car park, a faint path slants down to the old road, which is now a well-used track. Head up-valley for about 650yds (594m). With the old road continuing as a green track ahead, your path now bends down to the right. It has been rebuilt, with the bog problem solved by scraping down to the bedrock. The path reaches the gorge where the River Coe runs in a geological dyke of softer rock. Descend on a steep wooden step ladder, to cross a spectacular footbridge.
2 The ascent out of the gorge is on a bare rock staircase. Above, the path runs through regenerating birch wood, which can be very wet on the legs; sheep and deer have been excluded from the wood with a temporary fence. Emerge over this by a high ladder stile. The path, rebuilt in places, runs uphill for 60yds (55m). Here it bends left; an inconspicuous alternative path continues uphill, which can be used to bypass the narrow path of the main route.
3 The main route contours into the gorge of the Allt Coire Gabhail. It is narrow with steep drops below. Where there is an alternative of rock slabs and a narrow path just below, the slabs are more secure. You will hear waterfalls, then two fine ones come into view ahead. After passing these, continue between boulders to where the main path bends left to cross the stream below a boulder the size of a small house. (A small path runs on up to right of the stream, but leads nowhere useful.) The river here is wide and fairly shallow. Five or six stepping stones usually allow dry crossing. If the water is above the stones, then it's safer to wade alongside them; if the water is more than knee-deep the crossing should not be attempted.
4 A well-built path continues uphill, now with the stream on its right. After 100yds (91m) a lump of rock blocks the way. The path follows a slanting ramp up its right-hand side. It continues uphill, still rebuilt in places, passing above the boulder pile that blocks the valley, the result of two large rockfalls from under Gearr Aonach opposite. At the top of the rockpile the path levels, giving a good view into the Lost Valley.
5 Drop gently to the valley's gravel floor. The stream vanishes into the gravel, to reappear below the boulder pile on the other side. Note where the path arrives at the gravel, as it becomes invisible at that point. Wander up the valley to where the stream vanishes, ¼ mile (400m) ahead. Anywhere beyond this point is more serious hillwalking than you have done up to now on this walk. Return to the path and follow it back to the start of the walk.
The romantically named Lost Valley is 'Coire Gabhail' in Gaelic, the Corrie of Booty. Here, during the centuries leading up to the famous massacre of 1692, the MacDonalds hid their stolen cattle when the owners came storming in over the Moor of Rannoch with torch and claymore. It seems incredible that even the sure-footed black cattle of the clans could have been persuaded up the slope to Coire Gabhail. The corrie entrance is blocked by two old landslides from the face of Gearr Aonach, the middle hill of Glen Coe's Three Sisters. Stream shingle, backing up behind the obstruction, forms the smooth valley floor.
The economic system of Highland Scotland, until the end of the clans in 1745, was based on the keeping and the stealing of cattle. It was an unsettled and dangerous lifestyle, and its artform was the verse of the bard who celebrated the most ingenious or violent acts of thievery and kept track of blood feuds.
The clan, gathered under its chieftain, was an organisation for protecting its own glen and for stealing from its neighbours. The MacDonalds of Glen Coe were particularly good at it. They raided right across the country, passing the fringes of the Cairngorms to steal from the fertile lands of Aberdeenshire and Moray. In 1689, when Campbell of Glen Lyon was a guest in the house of MacIan, chief of Glen Coe, his cold blue eyes may have dwelt on a particular cooking pot. Twice in the previous ten years, MacIan had come raiding into Glen Lyon, dishonoured the women by cutting off their hair and, on the second, occasion stolen that pot from Campbell's own mother.
By the late 1600s, the clan and the claymore were being replaced by a legal system backed by the central government and its army. But because they were so good at cattle thieving, the MacDonalds of Glen Coe continued the practice long after everyone else had, reluctantly, started to move into the modern world of cash. As a result, the government decided to make an example of them.
On a cold February day, a squad of soldiers arrived in the valley. Traditional hospitality meant that even its leader Glen Lyon, a Campbell and an enemy, was welcomed into the house of MacDonald. Five nights later, at a given signal, the soldiers rose from their beds and started murdering their hosts. The Glen Coe Massacre was either incompetent or mercifully half-hearted. Of the valley's population of 300, just 40 were killed, with the remainder escaping through the snow to the Lost Valley and the other high corries.
The Clachaig Inn, on the old road to Glencoe village, has been the haunt of hill people for over a century. It serves hearty food, six real ales (one brewed from heather) and over 100 whiskies. The Boots Bar is well accustomed to tired and rather damp people coming out of the Lost Valley, though they do ask that boots be reasonably clean. Dogs are welcome, but children only in the more refined Bidean Bar.
The National Trust for Scotland's new visitor centre is on the A82 opposite Glencoe village. (The earlier one, below the towering face of Bidean nan Bian, was removed in 1999 as an intrusion.) The centre tells the story of the glen, the MacDonalds and the Massacre of Glen Coe.
Aonach Dubh is the right-hand of the Three Sisters of Glen Coe. High on its flank is the black slot of Ossian's Cave. Ossian was the bard to the Fingalians, a race of legendary giants who roamed the hills before the coming of the clans. His cave is hard to get to - a rock climb graded Difficult - and is most uncomfortable, as its floor slopes at an angle of 45 degrees.
Driving school
Up to half price sale – from £99pp
