Loch Morlich – Pink Sand, Old Pines and Lunch
A few hours.
The route
Loch Morlich has a beach of pink sand under old Scots pines, with the Cairngorms rising across the water, and the Grantown artist Angus Grant calls it his favourite landscape by far.
An easy loop takes you through the woods and along the shore, and lunch is a few minutes away at the community-run café in the Glenmore Visitor Centre.
Before you go
Book accommodation nearby
If you are staying over: here are ours nearest where the day starts and ends.
The day
Glenmore
A gentle few hours by the loch under the mountains. An hour on the sand and through the pines, then a warm lunch just across the road.
About two and a half hoursAbout 2 miles on foot
Loch Morlich
An attraction
The Beach car park is on the ski road at the east end of Loch Morlich, signed for Loch Morlich Watersports. It's pay and display from 8am to 10pm: £2 for an hour, £3 for up to three hours and £5 for the day at the time of writing, and Forestry and Land Scotland passes don't count here. The beach is a long curve of coarse pink sand, ground down from the granite of the Cairngorms, with old Scots pines along the back and the mountains across the water. The Beach Trail makes an easy 2.4 km loop through pine, birch and alder woods by the Allt Mor burn, or stream, and along the sand, and an hour is about right. It's mostly wide, smooth gravel and pavement, with a few short slopes. The loch is cold and open water, so keep a close eye on children at the edge. The toilets at the car park are open from 1 April to 31 October; in winter use the ones in Glenmore village.
7 min on foot
Allt Mor Café
Lunch
It's a 7-minute walk east across the road from the car park to the Allt Mor Café in the Glenmore Visitor Centre, a café the community has owned since November 2024. Have soup, rolls or cake, or a breakfast roll if you're early. It opens every day from 9am to 4pm, dogs are welcome inside, and the toilets are open while the café is. Over Christmas and New Year, check before going. Then it's 7 minutes' walk back to the car.
If it rains
In rain, keep to the sheltered part of the Beach Trail under the trees and go early to the Allt Mor Café, where the visitor centre is under a roof.
Allt Mor Café, a café in Glenmore.
Photograph by charlie just charlie via Google