Glen Etive – A Single-Track Road to the Head of Loch Etive
A few hours.
The route
Glen Etive is the long, quiet glen running south from the head of Glen Coe to Loch Etive, the two Buachailles over it and red deer grazing by the road.
This is a morning on its single-track road, down to the sea loch and back, with lunch at the top of the glen in a bar with fires to sit by and views that change with the light.
Before you go
Book accommodation nearby
If you are staying over: here are ours nearest where the day starts and ends.
The nearest of ours is RiverBeds at Woodlands Glencoe. Sleeps 2.
The day
Glen Etive
A morning by car down Glen Etive to the sea loch at its foot and back up again, then lunch by the fire where the glen meets the main road.
Glen Etive
An attraction
The road into Glen Etive leaves the A82 just past Buachaille Etive Mòr, at the head of Glen Coe, and runs about twelve miles down to the head of Loch Etive. It's single track all the way, so take it slowly and use the passing places. The upper glen is open heather, with the River Etive running through pools and waterfalls beside the road. Past the house at Dalness, where two old passes come through from Glen Coe, the glen narrows and the woods begin. Red deer graze by the road, quite used to people, and the glen was a backdrop for the Bond film Skyfall. Park in the large layby opposite the Coiletir track. The road ends a little further on, at the head of the loch, where steamers from Oban called at a pier from 1847. Ben Starav's steep flanks face you over the water, and to the west Beinn Trilleachan shows its great bare slabs of rock: bring binoculars for the golden eagles over it. On the way back, Buachaille Etive Mòr shows the other end of its long ridge.
About 20 min by car
Kingshouse Hotel
Lunch
The Kingshouse Hotel is a mile east of the Glen Etive turning, at the end of its own road off the A82, with parking at the hotel. Lunch is in the Climbers Bar, with fires to sit by and views that change with the light: a hearty lunch, or coffee and cake. Dogs are welcome in the bar. The oldest part of the building has stood here since the 1750s, now the Way Inn, renovated in 2018 as a stop for West Highland Way walkers.
If it rains
In low cloud the hills come and go, but the river, the deer and the head of the loch are by the road; lunch is indoors by the fire.
Kingshouse Hotel, historic inn on Rannoch Moor.
