Map of the UK
Map of the UK
Glen Nevis runs south and then east out of Fort William. It's beautiful and easily accessed, so it has been used as a location for scenes in Braveheart, Rob Roy, Highlander, the Harry Potter movies, and others.
Fort William, known in Scottish Gaelic as An Gearasdan, is along Loch Linnhe, the narrow waterway seen on this map as passing close to Ben Nevis, the highest peak in Scotland at 1344 meters.
Loch Linnhe, Loch Lochy, and Loch Ness form the Great Glen running southwest to northeast all the way across northern Scotland.
Loch Linnhe opens into the sea, and is the longest sea loch in Scotland.
Ben Nevis is a mountain on one side of Glen Nevis, the River Nevis runs down the glen to empty into Loch Linnhe at Fort William.
See my page about an ascent of Ben Nevis for details on it.
The UK uses a unique National Grid Reference System, although they are planning a conversion to standard UTM on which the National Grid is based. The National Grid system specifies location to within 100 meters or better.
NN specifies a 100x100 kilometer grid including west-central Scotland. The southwest corner of that 100x100 km grid is 200,000 meters east and 700,000 meters north of the datum origin.
Each large grid is subdivided into 1000x1000 meter grid squares. These appear as light blue lines on Ordnance Survey maps. The Fort William Backpackers hostel, where I stayed, is in a 1km grid square with its southwest corner 10 km east and 74 km north of the southwest corner of the NN 100km grid.
Within that 1km square a point just outside their back door is (as per GPS) 852 meters east and 61 meters north of the south-west corner. Well, approximately, my GPS unit might be off by 6 to 8 meters in any direction depending on satellite visibility and geometry. So 10852 is the "easting" and 74061 is the "northing" with large grid NN. That means you can specify the location to within one meter as NN 10852 74061. With 10m precision (easily done by GPS) this might be reported as NN 1085 7406, or with 100m precision, NN 109 741.
NN 10 74
(1km x 1km)
NN (100x100 km) +-----------+
+--------------+ | |
| | | |
| +--+ | | |
| | | - - - - - - - > | |
^ | x--+ | ^ | X | NN 10852 74061
| | | 61m| | |
| | | | x-----------+
74km| | | --------->
| | | 852m
^ | x--------------+
| -->
700,000m| 10km
|
*---->
200,000m
Datum reference point,
somewhere well southwest of the U.K.
You can directly calculate distances in this system by just subtracting the eastings and northings, as long as both points are in the same grid. You can easily measure to within 1 mm on the Ordnance Survey 1:25,000 maps, so that's 25 meter resolution read off the map.
The standard UTM (Universal Transverse Mercator) grid system works similarly, with eastings and northings within a large grid, but the details of reference datum and grid size and labeling works differently.
| NN | 10852 | 74061 | in the British National Grid is |
| 30U | 0371772 | 6299264 | in UTM |
Glen Nevis runs roughly south from Fort William past Meall an t-Suidhe and Ben Nevis. It then turns to the east and climbs gently as far as the road (yellow) is shown on this 1:250,000 Ordnance Survey map. It then climbs more steeply into a high valley.
You will definitely want to buy a quality Ordnance Survey map, at least 1:50,000 and more likely the more detailed 1:25,000 version. They're available in shops and the TIC (Tourist Information Center) in Fort William. Bigger bookstores in Edinburgh carry OS maps for all Scotland, and a few in London even have them for all of the U.K. I used the Explorer 392 map, titled "Ben Nevis & Fort William; The Mamores & The Grey Corries; Kinlochleven & Spean Bridge."
The 1:250,000 map at left and the 1:50,000 and 1:25,000 maps below are from the very useful Ordnance Survey site.
Image produced from the Ordnance Survey Get-a-map service. Image reproduced with kind permission of Ordnance Survey and Ordnance Survey of Northern Ireland.
There is a two-lane road through the northern part of the Glen. There is a campground, a couple of pubs, and a youth hostel (the red triangle) in the northernmost two kilometers of the glen. The pub along the road is the Glen Nevis House, an oddly early 1970s hipster lounge-bar where Dean Martin would hang out while taking a break from trekking through the Highlands.
The hostel, where a steep path climbs to join the Ben Nevis summit path, is the last business along the road.
There are nice paths through the Nevis Forest, including parts of the long-distance West Highland Way.
Well, mostly nice — in places the paths have to cross clear-cut sections which are bleakly forest-industrial.
The path winds back down out of the forest to join the road near the farm Achriabhach. At that point the road narrows to a single lane as it crosses the falls. That was 10.8 kilometers from where I started at the Fort William Backpackers hostel, given the route I took along the forest paths.
I think it's at the falls of Achriabhach that the Water of Nevis becomes the River Nevis. It quickly gets larger as it flows, as many small streams feed it on both sides with runoff from the surrounding mountains.
Follow the road to its end at a parking area. That's 2.8 kilometers from the falls of Achriabhach, or 13.6 km from Fort William. The path continues straight ahead, up a steep slope above the Water of Nevis.
The Water and the path make a right-angle turn. You climb a steep valley named Eas an Tuill. The Water of Nevis is tumbling down a series of falls with about a 100 meter drop over the course of one kilometer. Eas an Tuill is between Meall Cumhann to its northeast and Cathar na Seilge to its southwest.
The narrow valley opens out dramatically as you climb out of Eas an Tuill. Ahead and to your right are mountains with the waterfall An Steall nearby.
This 1:25,000 map shows more detail than the 1:50,000 maps above.
The valley turns to the left, more or less due east, and you're in a high and wide mountain valley. The ruins of the settlement of Steall are nearby. Paths continue west across the Highlands toward Corrour.
Steall is about 16.7 kilometers from Fort William, so that was my turnaround point. That made for over 33 km, a long enough day.
Starting out from the High Street through the center of Fort William.
Looking down from Cow Hill, 287 meters elevation, on Fort William and Loch Linnhe, and just visible in the distance, Loch Eil.
Looking southwest down Loch Linnhe toward where it opens into the sea.
A broad path, really a gravel lane, through Nevis Forest.
The West Highland Way is a long-distance path through Scotland. This lane forms a part of it.
The long-distance paths are marked with green diamonds on OS maps.
Looking across Glen Nevis toward the west side of Meall an t-Suidhe (711 meters).
Looking back down Glen Nevis toward Fort William and the north.
Cow Hill (287m) at left and Meall an t-Suidhe (711m) at right.
Looking southeast up Glen Nevis and the southwestern slopes of Ben Nevis (1344m).
Looking south along the path toward Stob Bàn (999m), which lies south of where Glen Nevis bends to the east.
Achriabhach, in front of Stob Bàn.
NN 1450 6840 in the National Grid system, about 11 km from town, elevation just about 50m.
My page about Ben Nevis has an explanation of the grid system.
The Falls of Achriabhach.
Below this point the stream is called the River of Nevis, above here it is called the Water of Nevis.
The Falls of Achriabhach.
The lane leading back to the parking area in upper Glen Nevis. The cark park is at NN 1675 6920 another 2.8 km from Achriabhach.
Smaller falls on the Water of Nevis.
Well, you do need to be careful.
Signs for paths to various destinations, in both Scots Gaelic and English:
Drochaid Aonachain
Spean Bridge
Steisean Choire Odhair
Corrour Station
Ceann Loch Liobhainn
Kinlochlevin
To give you some idea of Scots spelling and pronunciation, the second two destinations are intended to be pronounced the same way in either spelling.
That is, steisean is station, Choire Odhair is pronounced roughly like Corrour, and Kinlochleven is just the English spelling of Ceann Loch Liobhainn.
Following the path up the valley Eas an Tuill.
Following the path up the valley Eas an Tuill.
Coming out of the upper end of Eas an Tuill. The waterfall An Steall is straight ahead, coming down from An Gearanach (982m).
This is the view from around NN 1730 6880, elevation about 210m.
The valley curves around to your left, to run roughly east.
An Steall waterfall.
The scale of things here makes the picture look far less impressive than the reality. The waterfall is 105 meters tall.
It's at NN 1800 6820, elevation about 250m at the base.
Another view of An Steall.
You have to cross the Water of Nevis to get closer to An Steall.
Here is the view across the footbridge — a three-cable bridge.
One cable to walk on, one for each hand.
These are the ruins of the settlement of Steall.
It was abandoned in the Highland clearances.
NN 1875 6880, about 17 km from Fort William, elevation about 230m.
A view from beyond Steall, looking back west over Steall and toward the lower glen.
Other hikers exploring Steall.
Starting back toward Fort William.
This area is very boggy. There are firm paths, but in places you have to pass through soft and wet areas.
Hurry coos!
Or, as you might call them, hairy cows.
Shaggy Highland cattle.
You can see some of these in the lower Glen Nevis.
These seem to be very reasonable creatures.
They're the sort of animal you might find in nature, as compared to the genetic dead-ends of industrially raised cattle.
Plus, they look like something out of the last Ice Age.
On my to-do list: Take the early morning train from Fort William to Corrour, an isolated station in a spectacular setting. There is no road to Corrour, its only connection is the single-track rail line and Highland paths.
Then walk west from there following the stream Abhainn Rath and the upper Water of Nevis to arrive in the area of Steall from the east. It would require waterproof footwear as there would be plenty of fords and boggy ground.
I measured it as 13.6 kilometers from the Fort William Backpackers to the parking area, and a sign there say it's 13 miles (21 km) to Corrour. I did a walk out to Steall and back (over 33 km) in a day without getting a very early start at all, so this should be doable. The Corrour-Steall section would be relatively flat, but boggy and therefore more tiring in places. From Steall it's mostly downhill all the way back.
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