Ben Nevis and Glen Coe - A Walking Guidebook

The area covered in this guidebook, from Ben Nevis southwards towards Glen Coe offers some of the finest mountain walking in the UK. This guide not only covers Lochaber's spectacular summits but also describes mid-level walks and gentle strolls, great through routes along empty glens, and tent or bothy treks - serious in terms of remoteness and scenery.

‘Glen Coe, Glen Coe, it’s the place to go…’

The best of walking is ridge walking. Swoop downwards from the peak, level off along a rocky crest, then rise again to another summit; and then do the same thing again, four or five or even eight times over. Let the ridge sides drop steeply 900m to a green valley where a river gleams among the alder trees; and beyond the valley another steep ridge, and another, and the sea reaching silver-grey into the furthest west. For added interest let the ridge top be composed of three different sorts of stone. And you’ve started to understand why the area from Ben Nevis southwards to Glen Coe is some of the finest mountain walking there is in the UK.

I put that ‘some of’ so as not to annoy the lovers of Snowdonia, or the English Lakes, or Skye, or Torridon. There’s a lot more of Lochaber than there is of Snowdonia; it’s one and a half times as large as Lakeland. It’s a whole lot easier to get to than Skye. Still not convinced? In that case…

Follow me first onto one of the less celebrated summits, Ben Starav at the bottom of Glen Etive. Its long ridge (Route 73) is stony with moss, and leads into an easy scramble over blobby boulders of grey granite. But now, drop into the green valley on the left and enjoy another aspect of it all. Steep grass and granite slabs shut out the sky. Below the path, a gloomy ravine, with the flash of a waterfall. And at the valley foot, under green birch and dark pine, the cuckoo calls, and white water slides over granite that mysteriously is now coloured pink.

Next, let’s visit Bidean nam Bian. The rocks now are volcanic, grey-blue andesite and pinky-grey rhyolite, all of it great to climb on if you’re a rock climber. Enter Bidean up one of its three ravines, each with some of that great climbing rock hanging impressively overhead. It’s steep, and it’s gloomy, and it gets steeper, until all at once you emerge onto Bidean’s ridge, with bright sky around you.

Granite and volcanic: the third rock is called quartzite. It’s flat but cracked, like a city pavement after earthquakes. Follow it along the Grey Corries, where its sharp edges will slash your boots, but its flat slabs give almost-easy walking above the precipices.

By now you’re getting tired. So take a break; and come back in February or March. The eroded path along the Mamores is gone, and instead a snow edge swoops like a breaking wave, the snow crisp and crunchy for your crampons. In the clear cold air of a classic winter day, views are southwards over half a dozen ranges to the dome of Ben Lomond.

At the bottom of every steep-sided ridge there’s a steep-walled valley. Some of those valleys contain the A82 (alas, how even lovelier would be Glen Coe without its busy road). But the others offer long through routes, with rugged paths and smooth Landrover tracks. A comfortable track leads between the jaws of the Lairig Leacach, and down past small waterfalls while looking up at Ben Nevis and the Mamores. Then it’s down a river whose alder-shaded bank has green levels for the tent. An even lonelier glen – but still with a good footpath – leads you to a lochan and bothy that are completely out of it. And however bleak the Blackwater, the last 4 miles, through a deep, steep glen of beautiful birchwoods, will leave you at Kinlochleven longing for the next really long walk with the big rucksack. Just as soon as your feet and shoulders have recovered from the first one.

Oh, Sir Hugh Munro

An oddity of hillwalking in Scotland is that it takes place almost entirely above the 900m contour line. Sir Hugh Munro in 1892 listed the hills above 3000ft (914.4m) – after revisions there are currently 284 of them, of which 44 are in the area of this guidebook. Many hillwalkers are engaged in visiting these 284, and they are indeed worthwhile hills to visit. But the consequence is that the well-trodden ways and rebuilt paths are on these, rather high, hills. The lesser heights, of 914.3m and below, are largely pathless, and their lesser altitude usually means denser and tougher vegetation. Accordingly, the lower hills are interesting, and unfrequented; but they are not easy. The less difficult of them, and the most interesting, are included here.

The ‘standard routes’ up the Munros are detailed in several existing guidebooks, including Steve Kew’s Walking the Munros Vol 1 (Cicerone). So, while I have described them here briefly, I have also sought out the more interesting ways around the back, the unfrequented corries, the more demanding rugged ridgelines from the less convenient car parks.

But on the finest of them all I’ve left the choice to you. Bidean is a hill to visit many times by many different routes; and so, in the south, is Ben Cruachan. The Mamores is one great ridge of many mountains: where you go up and come down depends on how much of it you want to do today. The Black Mount’s great complex sprawl also deserves to be explored in detail.

For more serious scrambling, the area is inspiringly described in Noel Williams’ Scrambles in Lochaber. My own copy is now extremely battered! Here I have included various tough walking routes involving rock, but just two of the easiest and most spectacular scrambles: the magnificent Ledge Route on Ben Nevis, and the Zigzags onto Bidean nam Bian (Routes 9 and 63). Here is also the harder, but unmissable, scramble of the Aonach Eagach ridge above Glen Coe (Route 52). If you like them as much as I do, get hold of Noel’s book and take an extra fortnight off.

Walking conditions

For low-level walking, Scotland used to offer only the plod through the bog or the smooth and stultifying forest road through the spruce. The south of the area is still like that. However, Kinlochleven has an excellent little network of scenic paths; Glen Nevis has a more variable selection. Some are waymarked and signposted, some not; it’s a good idea to carry a compass and keep a general idea of which way is the road and which way is vast and pathless wilderness.

The mid-level hills are more demanding. They tend to offer arduous half-days, somewhat tougher but less rockily rewarding than the higher ground. Chase after them though for good views achieved in solitude, or on a windy day or one with poor-quality soggy snow on the bigger hills.

On mountains of 900m and upwards, bare rocks and stones replace the clinging heather or grassy tufts. Or else you’re on a path; popular ways lead to all the Munro summits. The high ground may be comparatively easy, but it is also serious. On the ridges of Bidean nam Bian you’re several hours’ walk from any shelter, and that walk will have to find its way down between crags.

Fancy backpacking, but not sure how it all fits together? Worried you might pack too little gear into the big rucksack – or, even worse, too much? The treks and through routes are full-on in terms of big scenery, lochs and rivers, and real remote country. But at the same time they are fairly easy-going in terms of tracks and footpaths, and a couple of bothies just in case you did manage to lighten your pack by leaving behind the tent poles.

But let’s be hopeful and suppose you remember the tent poles (and even the tent itself), get the weight below 25lb/12kg without leaving out anything that really matters, start early, and keep the speed sensibly low. Then Glen Coe and Glen Nevis could turn you from a boring Munro-bagger into a backpacker for ever.

Within the various sections, the through routes are described from south to north so as to get the bad weather beating on your back. In the northern part of the area, routes web in and out around Corrour station at the edge of Rannoch Moor. The overview maps on pages 12–15 let you link them into expeditions of up to a week.

These overview maps also mark deer-stalking estates. In Scotland there is a legal right of access to virtually all open country, provided that access is taken responsibly. In certain areas, reponsible access means – during three months of autumn – adapting your walking so as not to disturb deer stalking. Over Ben Nevis itself, and in Glen Coe, there is free access year-round; in places like Black Mount and Etive, where deer are hunted for sport, helpful phone lines or agreed routes are available. Full details are in Appendix 1.

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