The Lost Valley — Stomping Feat.

Feb 28

Feb 28 The Lost Valley

The Australian accent gives us away. Then ask anyone from Scotland what your ‘must do’ is while living here, and getting to experience the beauty and awe of Glencoe is top of the list.

Familiar to keen-eyed fans of Harry Potter (as the backyard of Hagrid’s house!) and 007 (as the long driveway to the Bond family home, Skyfall), Glencoe is truly a sight to behold.

Standing in the valley of Glencoe, looking up toward the ‘three sisters’ - part of the craggy mountain range that create the valley, is indeed awesome and beautiful. It is also eerie and deeply moving and certainly deserves more attention than given by the many tour buses that pause here for a quick photo stop.

Glencoe’s eerie ambiance is perhaps due to its dark history as the scene of the ‘Glencoe Massacre’ that occurred early in the morning of 13 February 1692. Thirty eight people from clan MacDonald were killed by their guests (including members of clan Campbell), who had been staying for two weeks with the MacDonald’s in the spirit of highland hospitality. A further forty people died from exposure, having fled into the mountains in the freezing winter weather to escape the massacre.*

Top of the River, Lost Valley of Glencoe

When we visited in December it was an unseasonably warm day, which bode well for our hike up the Lost Valley of Glen Coe. It is said that the Lost Valley (called Coire Gabhail in Gaelic) was used by Clan MacDonald to hide their cattle from the ‘thieving’ eyes of other clans. Having hiked the route myself in 2016 hiking boots, I honestly have no idea how they managed it with herd of cattle.

The walk begins in the carpark amongst the tourbus tourists. Down into the valley between Beinn Fhada and Gearr Aonach – two of the three sisters – this is a taste of the incline and scenery of the Lost Valley walk. Crossing a bridge high over the gorge of the River Coe, the rocky path then leads steeply up to a deer fence.

Through the gate, the rocky, rough path rounds into the steep gorge between Gearr Aonach and Beinn Fhada. The high rocky walls on either side exaggerate the drama of the path, and my fear of heights. All the while we go steeply up the gorge and scrambling over rocks. We missed the river crossing (apparently it happens a lot!) and only when we lost track of an obvious path forward we turned around. Backtracking a tad we found a different crossing, scrambling on large boulders to the other side of the river to find the last challenge of the walk – the rake.

After a lot of encouragement, I made it (cautiously) up the well-worn, slippery rake. Another short, steep climb up a staircase of (kindly placed) boulders and we reached the top of the gorge. The Lost Valley opens in front of your eyes – a wide, inexplicably flat expanse in-between the two craggy peaks of the sisters.

Being alone in the valley was a moment of pleasure. It was silent and still and somehow calmer and less foreboding that the view from the valley on the other side.

Lost in the Valley, Lost Valley of Glencoe

The walk back the way we came, with the added bonus of the downhill view was much faster, less the moments stopped for photos. I would definitely recommend this walk for a challenging morning walk with an excellent pay off at the top.

*My short summation of these events merely scratches the surface of how atrocious these crimes were, and how seriously they were taken by the Scots, and Highlanders in particular. Rather than fail to do them justice by glossing over details about it here, I chose not go into the story any further, and instead to respectfully talk about their beautiful homelands that we explored.