Loch Muick – A Shore Walk and a Picnic by the Pines
A few hours.
The route
Loch Muick lies at the head of Glen Muick under the dark corries of Lochnagar, and the walk along its shore is one of the best on Deeside.
Pick up pies for a picnic at Sheridan's, the butcher on Bridge Street in Ballater, then drive up the glen and follow the shore track to Glas-allt-Shiel, Queen Victoria's lodge among the pines, for lunch by the water. It's a fine day out for walkers and families with good legs, and dogs on a lead are welcome.
Before you go
Book accommodation nearby
If you are staying over: here are ours nearest where the day starts and ends.
The day
Glen Muick
Pies from the butcher's on Bridge Street, the single-track road up Glen Muick, and a shore walk to a picnic under the pines, with the hills closing in round the head of the loch.
About four and a half hoursAbout 6.5 miles on foot
Sheridan's the Butcher
Start in Ballater, just round the corner from Station Square on Bridge Street, at Sheridan's, a butcher's that has held Royal Warrants since 1987. Its takeaway counter is the place for a Deeside picnic: macaroni pies, mince pies, chicken curry pies and sausage rolls, with oatcakes and cheese from its deli shelves. It opens Monday to Saturday, 8am to 5pm, and is shut on Sundays; on a Sunday, the Bridge House Café a few doors along, open Thursday to Monday, has deli things and home bakes to take away. Fill a flask too: nothing is sold in the glen.
21 min by car
Loch Muick
An attraction
It's 21 minutes' drive: over the Royal Bridge, right on the B976, then left up the single-track road through Glen Muick to the Spittal of Glenmuick car park at its end. It's a paid car park, about £5 a car for the day at the time of writing, at a machine that takes cards or cash. On bright weekends it can fill by mid-morning, and the road is then closed at its foot until cars leave, so come early or have another plan. There are public toilets and the estate's small visitor centre. From mid-September, deer stalking may be under way on the hills round the loch: watch for notices and keep to the loch path. Walk on past the visitor centre and take the track along the north-west shore, firm and nearly level, about five kilometres to Glas-allt-Shiel, an hour and a half at an easy pace.
About 1 hr 10 min on foot
The shore at Glas-allt-Shiel
Picnic
Picnic on the shingle and grass by the water just along from Glas-allt-Shiel, the lodge Queen Victoria built here in 1868, after Prince Albert died. The lodge belongs to the King and is never open, so keep to the path in front of it, and take every scrap home: there are no bins. Then walk back the way you came, or carry on round the head of the loch and back along the far shore, where the path is narrow and rough in places, 12.5 kilometres in all from the car park. From November to February, set off from the car park by 11am to be back in daylight. If the weather turns, have lunch in Ballater at the Rothesay Rooms in the Old Royal Station instead, open Wednesday to Sunday until 4pm.
If it rains
The shore track is firm and the walk works in light rain with waterproofs; in a gale or low cloud, keep to the near end of the loch, or skip the walk and have lunch at the Rothesay Rooms in Ballater, Wednesday to Sunday.
Photographs by Chirag Dedhia via Google; hiddenscotland and Richard Gaston