The Green Lochan – The Ryvoan Trail, Open Again After the Fire

The walk

Park at the Glenmore Visitor Centre, on the ski road just beyond Loch Morlich, where PH22 1QU is the nearest postcode. The car park belongs to the Aviemore and Glenmore Community Trust and is a paid one, and Forestry and Land Scotland's tickets and passes aren't valid in it. Don't plan on the Allt Mor car park, the other usual start for the pass: it's closed after the fire, and so is the Allt Mor path. The Ryvoan Trail starts at the visitor centre. Forestry and Land Scotland gives it as three and a half miles, or 5.8 km, grades it moderate and allows two and a half hours. Most of it is smooth gravel track with moderate slopes, a few short ones fairly steep, and it has one road crossing and a short stretch beside the road. The lower way is a broad, firm forest road that suits a buggy, and the upper one dips and climbs across the hillside, so a walker can do one or make the full circuit.

At the far end is An Lochan Uaine, green water in a hollow of the pass, with a sandy shore, old pines at its edge and grey scree above. Red squirrels live in the pine and birch along the way. A wildfire burned across part of this forest in the summer of 2026, and the trail reopened on 5 October once fire-damaged and unstable trees had been cleared from its edges. Many dangerous trees still stand in the burned ground between the trail and the ski road. Stay on the waymarked trail and the open forest roads, do as the signs on site say, and take that most seriously on a windy day. Ryvoan Bothy, a little beyond the lochan, can be reached again. The right of way on towards Nethy Bridge is closed beyond the bothy, and so is part of the Lodge Trail between Ryvoan and Allt Mor.

The visitor centre's toilets are open only while its café is. There are toilets open at all hours a minute's walk away, near the bus stop in Glenmore village. Fires and barbecues aren't allowed anywhere in the forest park. Keep dogs under close control. From November to January, set off by noon.