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Things to do
in Lochaber.

It’s 15:22 in Lochaber.
Lochaber

E-bikes on Knoydart, drams at Lochy Bridge.

Lochaber is made for getting outdoors. On Knoydart, where there are almost no roads, you can hire an electric mountain bike in Inverie and ride out to Sandaig beach or the Folach waterfalls. The peninsula's own rangers lead guided walks through the woods and small trips to watch otters and seals. Long-distance walkers can set off from Fort William on organised trips along the West Highland, Great Glen or East Highland Ways. When the weather closes in, the distillery at the foot of Ben Nevis has tours and tastings. Bring waterproofs whatever the forecast says.

Ben Nevis Distillery→
West Highland Way with Thistle Trekking→
East Highland Way with Thistle Trekking→
Knoydart Ranger Service→
The Great Glen Way by Thistle Trekking→
Knoydart E-Bike Hire→
Quiz15 hours ago

Which headland is the most westerly point of mainland Great Britain?

Place of the day14 hours ago

Ben Nevis Distillery.

A whisky distillery at Lochy Bridge on the edge of Fort William, founded in 1825, with a visitor centre, coffee shop, tours and tastings.

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Book ahead13 hours agoFort WilliamBen Nevis DistilleryTourLochaberKnoydart E-Bike HireTourLochaberKnoydart Ranger ServiceTour

Book something for the weekend.

The tours and days that fill up: someone who knows the water, the hill or the city, booked before Friday.

See all the tours
Did you know13 hours ago

Runners have raced up Ben Nevis, near Fort William, and back down since 1898, and the men's record for the round trip is 1 hour 25 minutes 34 seconds.

It began with William Swan, a Fort William barber, who made the first recorded timed ascent in 1895, getting up and down in 2 hours 41 minutes. The first proper race followed on 3 June 1898, when ten runners set off from the Lochiel Arms Hotel in Banavie. Today the course is about 14 kilometres with roughly 1,340 metres of climbing, and every runner must carry waterproofs, a hat, gloves and a whistle. Kenny Stuart set the men's record in 1984, and Victoria Wilkinson set the women's, 1 hour 43 minutes 1 second, in 2018. The race starts and finishes at Claggan Park on the first Saturday in September.

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From our guide12 hours ago

The Lost Valley.

Hidden high among the Three Sisters, Coire Gabhail is where the MacDonalds of Glencoe kept the cattle they had rustled from their neighbours. From the road you would never guess it was there. The path climbs steeply from the A82 through a wooded gorge and a jumble of boulders, with a burn to cross on stepping stones, before the valley opens out, flat and green, between the cliffs. It's only about four kilometres there and back, but it's rough and rocky all the way. Turn back if the burn is in spate after rain.

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Hidden Scotland, the magazineThe magazine

Issue 13

The autumn and winter issue is here.

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From the magazine11 hours agoThe printed copy of Issue 13Issue 13Autumn / Winter 2026-27

The wildlife film-maker Gordon Buchanan, aged 54, calls himself the blink of a midge's eye beside Buachaille Etive Mòr in Glencoe, which formed around 420 million years ago.

Gordon has known and admired the mountain at the eastern end of Glencoe for more than three decades. Since the glaciers retreated around it, the Buachaille has watched the first hunter-gatherers arrive in Scotland around 14,000 years ago, then Neolithic farmers, the Picts and medieval kingdoms, and now droves of tourists with cameras. 'Mountains are indifferent to us. Maybe that is the appeal. They make us feel small and irrelevant and are a constant reminder that there are some things far, far bigger than us'. One day, he writes, ice, rain and time will wear it away, but for now it keeps watch over Scotland's wild heart.

Read the full story in Issue 13
From Issue 9 of Hidden Scotland magazineIssue 910 hours ago

Documenting the Small Isles

Photographer Simon Hird crosses between Eigg, Muck, Canna and Rum in early spring, meeting the knitters, makers and islanders who live on each of the Small Isles.

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From our guide9 hours ago

Nevis Range Mountain Resort.

Seven miles from Fort William, on the slopes of Aonach Mòr, a mountain gondola lifts you from the glen to 650 metres in about fifteen minutes, with the views over Lochaber opening out the whole way up. At the top there are two short viewpoint walks and the Snowgoose Café for something warm. Mountain bikers come for the trails and the downhill World Cup track, and there's bike hire at the base. In winter, when the snow comes, the gondola carries skiers and snowboarders to the slopes. It's a fine way to get high without the climb.

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Did you know9 hours ago

Glen Coe, in Lochaber, was the first place in the world where geologists recognised an ancient volcano that had collapsed in on itself.

About 420 million years ago a volcano erupted through the older rocks of the area, and the roof of its magma chamber gave way piece by piece along a ring of faults. In 1909 the geologists Clough, Maufe and Bailey described it in a paper called 'The Cauldron-Subsidence of Glen Coe', and the idea, now known as caldera collapse, was born. The sunken caldera measures about 13 kilometres by 8. Glaciers later carved its rocks into the corries and ridges of the glen, the Three Sisters among them, and near Stob Mhic Mhartuin you can put your hand on the fault itself.

See Three Sisters of Glencoe · Lochaber
Newly discovered8 hours agoArdnamurchanAriundle OakwoodWalkArdnamurchanCafe SunartCafeArdnamurchanArdtornish GardensAttractionArdnamurchanThe Coal Shed CaféCafeArdnamurchanArdtornish CastleAttractionArdnamurchanAoineadh MòrWalk

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From the magazine7 hours agoThe printed copy of Issue 13Issue 13Autumn / Winter 2026-27

Wildlife film-maker Gordon Buchanan fell for Buachaille Etive Mòr in Glencoe after two years in the Amazon without seeing a mountain.

Gordon Buchanan grew up around Tobermory on the Isle of Mull and has spent over 35 years filming and presenting wildlife films. At 21 he spent two years, from 1992 to 1994, living in Brazil's Amazon basin, where the forest was so thick that he never saw a sunrise, a sunset or a mountain. Driving home to Mull, he crested Rannoch Moor, and there in the early-morning light stood the Buachaille, whose name means the Great Herdsman of Etive, 'wearing a saucer-shaped lenticular cloud hat at a jaunty angle'. It was love at first sight, and it is still his favourite mountain on Earth.

Read the full story in Issue 13
Lunch6 hours agoFort WilliamThe Wildcat400 yardsFort WilliamCrannog at Garrison West700 yardsFort WilliamLime Tree Hotel0.5 miles

Lunch near East Highland Way with Thistle Trekking.

The three closest tables: The Wildcat, Crannog at Garrison West and Lime Tree Hotel.

See East Highland Way with Thistle Trekking