Hiking Loch Ness : Fort Augustus to Drumnadrochit

 “You may not find a path, but you will find a way.”

 

Tom Wolfe

 
Loch Ness looms large in the imagination - vast, dark, mythologized and endlessly marketed. Yet walking beside it is often an exercise in absence rather than presence. Forest plantations obscure views of the water, reroutes pull the trail uphill and back down again, and the loch itself becomes something on the edge more than seen.  And of course we didn’t see any cryptids or seamonsters …so there is that.

 
Today, the Great Glen Way revealed one of the central tensions of any trek: the gap between expectations on one hand and lived experience on the other.   The clearest example being that today we hiked along Loch Ness, yet rarely actually saw it until we reached Drumnadrochit.
 

Morning in Fort Augustus

 
Morning today came early.  We were once again both awake before most in the hostel had stirred.  As such, we moved quietly through the common area with bowls of oatmeal and cups of coffee, taking advantage of the time before the full breakfast service began.  After years of hiking, our morning routines are second nature – eat, clean, pack, prepare and set back out onto the trail.  There was little conversation this morning – after yesterday’s short stage, the focus was on getting going again.  The reality was that we had distance to make up.  Today would, by necessity, be a longer day.
 
Before long, we had packed up and stepped back out onto the Way.  We regularly found it interesting that here in Scotland, the trails are known as Ways, which of course reminded us of the many Caminos and pilgrimages we have trekked.  The Camino to Santiago is commonly referred to as “the Way”.

 
Interestingly, though, Scottish Ways are conceived of in a fundamentally different way from English trails.  In England, trails are seen as routes that are clearly defined – mapped, marked and followed as a set structure.  They are routes to be followed from trailhead to trailhead.  Here in Scotland, a Way suggests something less fixed.  The term implies passage rather than destination,   a journey that people choose to follow but not one that insists on being followed.
 
It was a framing that felt particularly appropriate for this journey.  After days of re-routes, detours and trail closures, the Great Glen Way had not presented itself as a single, clearly defined line, but as a route that required navigation and adjustment en route.  The notion of the Great Glen Way between Fort William and Inverness was a guide between the two places, not in any way a fixed path.

 
Leaving Fort Augustus, we followed the town streets briefly before the route led us into a forested corridor.  Here, the trail climbed through a forest – a shift from the canal towpaths to a treed corridor. 
 
From the outset, at least according to the guidebook, there were two options for the day.  The low route, closer to Loch Ness, offered a flatter path that followed the shoreline.  Or the high route, which climbed into the surrounding hills, where elevation gave way to wider views of the glen.  Under normal circumstances, the choice would have been simple. Rested but still tired, we had intended to follow the lower route to make up kilometres and time. 

 
In reality, there was no choice to make.  Almost immediately, we encountered a detour sign.  The low route had been closed due to forestry operations, and the only option available was the high route.  And so, once again, we adjusted our expectations and continued on.
 

Re-routed…Again

 
The re-route led us upward.  Instead of following the shoreline of Loch Ness, we climbed into the forest above it, leaving the water behind almost as soon as we had begun.  The path rose steadily through the trees, and before long, we found ourselves weaving along the hillside, the route moving at times back and forth in long switchbacks as it gradually worked its way to Invermoriston.   For much of this stretch, the trial was no longer a path in the traditional sense, but a wide gravel logging road.  It was easy enough to follow, but was certainly not inspiring.  
 
At times, we reached exposed stretches which provided views down the glen and over Loch Ness. The scale of it was immediately apparent – its length and dark waters filled the horizon.  For a moment, it was exactly what we had expected the trail to offer.  But such views and moments were brief.

 
There were signs of forestry work and logging everywhere.  The hillsides were scarred with the marks of recent cutting – large sections stripped back, lines of stumps, and a landscape that was uneven and ripped up.  We passed piles of felled trees stacked in long, ordered rows, accompanied by signs warning of “danger of death” and notices declaring sections of the trail ahead “closed – no access”.    At times, these warnings stood directly beside detour markers pointing us onward, the route threading its way between restriction and instruction in a way that was not always immediately clear.
 
Continuing on the track wove across the hillside, crossed small creeks and offered open patches with views which soon after disappeared among those stands of trees that still remained. 

 
It was here that the mental challenge of the day began to take hold.  It no longer felt as though we were hiking the trail we had set out to follow.  Instead, we were spending days navigating a series of self-imposed alternatives – a route shaped by forestry and industry rather than the landscape and nature. 
 
Physically, of course, the walking was not difficult.  Built for loaded trucks, the gradients were gentle and the gravel track simple to trek along.   But mentally, the diversions, closures and destruction of nature began to wear on us.  Hiking amid a landscape that was devastated was draining.

 
At least in that moment.  It was, of course, possible that we had encountered this stretch at the wrong time.  That in another season, or another stage of forestry, it might have felt different.  But walking through as we did, when we did, it seemed as though the entire hillside had been cleared at once. For those seeking a sense of immersion in the landscape, it was not an easy place to find it. 
 
And yet, there was little we could do but continue on,
 

Walking on Autopilot

 
There was still a long way to go, and despite everything the morning had offered, our bodies, at least, were holding up. Our packs sat well on our shoulders, our legs moved without complaint, and our feet - remarkably - remained free of the aches and pains that often come with days like this. In that sense, the walking itself was easy.
 
Beyond following re-route signs here was little to demand our attention, and walking was automatic.

We said very little to one another. There is only so much frustration that can be voiced before it begins to repeat itself, and by this point, we had both grown tired of commenting on the same things - the detours and the sense that we were following something other than the trail we had set out to walk. And so, without needing to say it aloud, we simply stopped talking about it.
 
In some ways, this kind of walking is comfortable. There is a rhythm to it that settles in easily. The body knows what to do, and once it finds that pattern, it continues without needing to be directed. It is efficient, steady, and, for a time, even welcome. But it comes at a cost.

As the kilometres passed, the landscape began to blur. The trail, for long stretches, became for us something remembered less as a trail and more as a place - a wide logging road threading through trees. Loch Ness, though somewhere beside us, remained largely hidden, obscured by the forest sections that lined the route. We caught only the occasional glimpse through breaks in the trees, before it disappeared again from view.

 
For most of this stretch, we walked within a corridor of trees. It offered shade and protection from the elements, which under other circumstances would have been appreciated.  But it tended to limit our sense of progress.

 
At one point, Sean wondered whether these types of moments were one of the unspoken costs of being on a (or series of) long-distance hikes.  We had had days like this on the Trans Canada Trail in the prairies, where we covered 50-60 km, seemingly without much effort, but also without much memory of what was in those stretches either.  We have come to see that as efficiency increases, attentiveness seems to drop off.  The body knows what to do, and as a result, you slip into a blind sort of trekking, which is certainly effective but which also comes at a price of having little sense of the experience itself. 
 

Loch Ness... Kind of

 
At times, we caught sight of Loch Ness below and were clearly walking parallel to it, but to say that we were beside it would have been a stretch.  Regardless it would take us two days of our trek to make our way along the full length of this body of water

 
Loch Ness is a result of glacial erosion and has become a cultural phenomenon known for apparent sightings of the Loch Ness monster, or Nessie.  The loch itself was carved in the last Ice Age, when glaciers carved through a line of geological weakness in what is now the Great Glen.  As the ice advanced and retreated, it deepened an existing fault line - the Great Glen Fault.  The resulting long, narrow trench would eventually fill with fresh water as the glaciers melted.  The result is a body of water that is more than 36 kilometres in length and in some areas, more than 200 meters deep.  As a result, it is one of the largest bodies of freshwater in the UK. 

 
This loch is also of course, more famously known for claimed sightings of the mythical creature – the Loch Ness monster – one of the most persistent myths in the world.  The earliest written account dates to the sixth century, when Saint Columba is said to have encountered a “water beast” in the River Ness, a story that has echoed into modern legend. Since then, sightings of an unidentified creature - Nessie”- have become part of the loch’s identity, blending folklore, tourism, and speculation into something that persists despite the absence of conclusive evidence.
 
Invermoriston Bridge and Falls
 
The descent toward Invermoriston was abrupt, the trail dropped in a series of steep switchbacks that seemed harsher than they needed to be.  What had been presented as a lochside trek shifted from taking from an active logging area, weaving beneath power pylons and slopes thick with ferns toward the road and town below.   Eventually, the path gave way to a quiet residential road, which in turn delivered us, once again, onto the busy line of the A82.

Our walk soon brought us to a beautiful stone bridge and waterfalls. Built in 1813, this arched bridge was the main route to cross the River Moriston for those between Drumnadrochit and Fort Augustus.  A sign noted that it was built by Thomas Telford as part of a larger plan to improve transportation and communication in the highlands.  This same plan also included the construction of the Caledonian Canal that the Great Glen Trail now follows.   

 
Walking between towns like Invergarry, Invermoriston, and finally Inverness, which itself is not far from Invergordon.  Each made us wonder …just what does the prefix “inver” mean?  As it turns out, in Scottish, "inver" means the mouth of a river, a confluence of waters, or a river’s edge. Derived from the Scottish Gaelic word inbhir, it is used as a prefix in place names to denote where a river flows into another river, a lake, or the sea, such as in Inverness (mouth of the Ness).  All of which here makes complete sense as we crossed the River Moriston, entering the town nearby. 
 

Invermoriston

The town of Invermorison sits where the River Moriston meets Loch Ness.  Heading along the road into town, we discovered a small sign, a wooden viewing platform, and a square stone basin. As it turns out, this is St. Columba’s Well.

The well is traditionally associated with Columba’s journey through the Great Glen in the sixth century, when he travelled from Iona to the court of the Pictish king Brude near Inverness to convert him to Christianity. Local tradition holds that he founded a church nearby, which has since been lost, and blessed the spring that still bears his name.

 
Before Columba’s visit, the water was said to be dangerous or poisoned, associated with spirits that caused illness and injury. According to tradition, Columba cleansed the spring, driving out these forces and rendering the water pure, after which it was believed to possess healing properties, curing a number of ills was also later used for baptisms.  The well became known as Fuaran Choluim Chille or St. Columba’s Well.

 
Fascinated, we made our way through Invermoriston and at the other end of town found the Glen Rowan Café. Here we sat at a picnic table outside and enjoyed huge cups of coffee with even larger pieces of Victoria sponge cake.  The opportunity to rest our legs and feet was wonderful.
 
Continuing on the Great Glen Way
 
Energized from our treat and break, we returned to the trail and almost immediately found ourselves climbing once again.  A narrow road led us upward in a series of tight switchbacks, taking us above the town and once again away from the loch. 

 
By the time we reached the top of the hill, the situation was familiar – another forestry cut and not long after another re-route sign.  The only difference was that this time, the only option was to follow the lower path.  And so after steadily climbing out of Invermoriston, we began the process of descending again, where the trail paralleled the A82 and the shores of Loch Ness.  

 
In theory, this was the easier option - the low route. In practice, it did not feel particularly level. The path rose and fell in small but persistent undulations, climbing just enough to be felt and descending just enough to interrupt any steady rhythm.  It seemed purpose-built simply to disrupt the notion of this being a flat walk along a canal towpath.

 
After a few miles, the trail again switchbacked uphill to rejoin the closed high route.  Here, a sign marked the distance ahead – 7 miles, or about 11 kilometres to go to Drumnadrochit.  On a good day, that would have been a straightforward run, taking us 2 to 3 hours to complete.  However, by this point, it already seemed as though we had covered far more ground than the numbers suggested. 

 
From here, the trail led us into a place signed as Ruskin Woods, where we were surrounded by beautiful cotton grasses throughout the area.  It was a brief but wonderful change from the more disrupted forestry cuts that we have been moving through over the past two days. 

 
Beyond the woods, the trail narrowed and began to trace a series of fence lines, weaving its way along the edges of properties as we approached the small community of Grotaig.

 
Then, depressingly, from here the Great Glen simply took us down a roadway with a few stretches of narrow path along the verge.  It was more than 6 km of roadway, which was, to say the least, an uninspiring way to end the day’s stage.  The road itself was not a busy one, but it always had cars and trucks on it nonetheless.
 

Into Drumnadrochit

 
After almost two hours of road walking and with Drumnadrochit in sight, and despite the reroutes and, closures of the day, the trail frustratingly wove away from our destination, weaving off around town before coming back to it.  While trails are rarely the most direct route between two locations, this late-day variation away and back into town was unwelcome and felt entirely unnecessary.

 
Finally, in Drumnadrochit, we made our way to Loch Ness Bay Camping, which was wonderfully welcoming and a beautiful area.  Here we unloaded our gear onto a picnic table and set up our tent, grateful to be done for the day after 35 kilometres on the trail.
 

Urquhart Castle

 
Having set out early that morning, it was still only early afternoon when we reached Drumnadrochit.  Cleaned up and refreshed with time in the day still ahead of us we walked out to Urquhart Castle. 

 
Set on the shores of Loch Ness, it could be seen even from a distance.  The ruins are perched at a narrowing in the Great Glen.  Having been built for control, it was not difficult to see why it had been built here.  From its vantage point, movement along the loch could easily be watched and, when necessary, stopped.  For centuries, this was a strategic corridor for those seeking to control the region.

 
Walking up to the site, the realities of visiting it were clear.  In the parking lot, more than 30 tour buses were parked, with more still pulling in.  Beyond the gate, the grounds were filled with people, shoulder to shoulder, moving slowly through the remains.  The cost of entry, nearly fifty dollars, was one consideration. The atmosphere was another. What lay beyond the gates felt less like an opportunity to understand the place and more like a managed flow of visitors through it. 

We looked in from the outside and chose not to enter.  The structure still told its story from where we stood.  Now a ruin the surviving walls and towers bore the marks of repeated conflict, rebuilding and its eventual destruction.  Though fragmented, it was still beautiful and commanding. 

Turning back toward town, we left behind both the castle and the crowds gathered in it.
 

Birding Urquhart Bay Woods

 
Looking for something quieter and far less costly than the castle, we made our way to Urquhart Bay Woods, a stretch of forest along the shores of Loch Ness. 

After a long day on the Great Glen Way Trail and the density of visitors at the castle, the woodlands were a wonderful break.  The path here wove us past a field of cute ponies into a forest. 

 

Here we began to see what had been largely absent along much of the trail and fields of tree stumps – birdlife.  A Song Thrush called out, and a Grey Wagtail moved along the water’s edge.  Spotted flycatchers darted through the canopy, and both Common Chaffinch and Common Sandpiper appeared on the edges of the path. 

 
Among the trees, we also came across a striking fungus growing directly from a trunk. Bright orange and layered in broad, shelf-like formations, it stood out sharply against the greens and browns of the surrounding forest. A large Chicken of the Woods.  
 

Exploring Drumnadrochit

 
Leaving the woods, we made our way into the village itself.  Drumnadrochit was clearly shaped by both the presence of Loch Ness and the story attached to it.   

Shops, exhibits, and signs all pointed to tourism based around the Loch Ness Monster.  Lessieland, the Loch Ness Centre, and Loch Ness Cruises being just a few of the more evident establishments.  

 
By this point, the day had begun to catch up with us.  Tired, we made our way back toward the campground and stopped en route at a nearby restaurant for a pint and a place to sit.  Dinner, however, was another consideration.  The cost of a simple meal in the area approached seventy-five pounds - roughly one hundred and fifty Canadian dollars - more than we were prepared to spend after days on the trail.  Instead, we made our way back to our tent and prepared a dehydrated camping meal, closing out another day on the Great Glen Way.
 

Reflections on Day 3 on the Great Glen Way

 
Today, there seemed to be an evident gap between what is imagined and what is experienced along the shores of Loch Ness.
 
The loch itself plays such a central role in the identity of this region- its name carrying with it centuries of story, speculation, and myth – that make it difficult not to arrive with a sense of expectation. Yet in walking alongside it, that presence has often felt more distant than immediate. For long stretches of the route, the water is only periodically visible, obscured by trees or set just beyond the reach of the trail. It exists more as an idea running parallel to the walk than as something fully encountered.

 
Even in Drumnadrochit, where the loch might be expected to define the experience of the place, access felt more structured than open. Reaching the shoreline seemed, more often than not, tied to an entry point - a castle, a tour, a designated space - rather than something naturally integrated into the path of the day. Indeed, even a local resident at the pub told us that when he was a child, you could play at the castle or swim in the loch for free, but now everything was fenced off and had increasing costs.

It is, in its own way, a small disappointment that the trail has been pulled so far away from the waterways that have shaped the Great Glen.   While this absence is not enough to define the walk, it is noticeable.  Much like hoping to see the Losh Ness monster, trekking the Great Glen Way reminds one of the distance between expectations and experiences. 
 
Tomorrow we will walk into Inverness and complete the Great Glen Way, as well as sadly bring our time in Scotland to an end, as we are next headed to Hadrian’s Wall National Trail in England
 
See you on the Trail!