Author: Tony Tomlinson

We have spent five days visiting Glencoe in the Scottish Highlands, the weather being what is expected during the winter months, the weather was a tad rubbish, strong winds and near horizontal rain interspersed with clearer skies and dry periods. During this time, it turned out that we would spend most of the time visiting the waterfalls in, and around Glencoe, although this was not planned, in hindsight, it was probably a wise decision as the water levels in the falls, emphasized these.

As we begun to gain height after Loch Lomond, we called in at the Falls of Falloch, whilst the volume of water flowing over these was nowhere near as that we experienced in October, a substantial amount of water was flowing in the River Falloch. The car park was near capacity, with a large number of visitors present at the waterfalls. I got a selfie of me in front of the falls this constituted the only photo form this visit.

We arrived at our hotel in Glencoe, during the afternoon, once checked in and cases unpacked, a quick look outside saw the rain barreling up the valley, in a near horizontal direction, this gave a good indication on the strength of the wind. The correct decision of staying indoors was chosen, so we retired to the bar and restaurant to sample some of the hotel’s hospitality.

Meeting of the Three Waters

The next morning, weather conditions were still wet and windy, but nowhere has powerful as the day before. After breakfast I decided to head out on my own to try and get to some locations and get some images without getting too wet in the process. The first port of call was the Meeting of the Three Waters, I had watched a Cliff Hands (#outsidepursuits, Cliff hands photography) video on YouTube in which he got underneath the bridge that carries the A82 through this area, from where he could photograph with some shelter form the wind and rain. Who am I to argue with a knowledgeable photographer of Glencoe, so I followed in his footsteps.

I soon decided to leave the shelter of the bridge, and walked out on to the grassy ledge from where I could get a portrait and landscape image of the waterfalls, which were now in front of me at eye level. From here I took many photos with varying shutter speeds and aperture settings to find the most pleasing effect of the water has it fell down the rock face.

Achtriochtan Waterfall

My next location was a stop off at Loch Achtriochtan, further down the Glen towards the village of Glencoe. Upon surveying the views, the heavy cloud and flat light did not create the best conditions of a photo from the shore of the Loch, looking back up the valley, so, I changed composition and choose the waterfall that starts above the Achtriochtan white cottage, with the waterfalls that comes from the mountain of Stob Coire nan Lochan into the River Coe. The final image for this location of the waterfall is more of a snap-shot, there was not a lot of options available to create more impact of the scene

Clachaig Falls

From Loch Achtriochtan, my next stop off was just across the road at the Clachaig Falls, I just had to drive down the road to the car park at the Clachaig Inn, and walk back along the road, by doing this I was not blocking any parking places.

The waters flowing down the falls was quite substantial, the white water contrasting against the heavy cloud covered skies.

Has I retraced my route along the road towards the falls, I dropped down to the rivers edge, keeping a lookout for any attractive compositions.

I managed to capture a reasonable photo of the river running towards me, with a barren pine tree on the right side of the image, the bareness of the tree contrasting against the colours in the water.

As I slowly moved up towards the main Clachaig Falls where the fish run cut out of the rocks to allow fish to swim above the falls, I found myself clambering over the rocks to get closer and lower vantage point of the falls. I found it quite difficult to make a decent photo of the falls due to the width of them and the interference of the river banks into the image.

After a good 40 minutes or so I had captured the best images that I was going to achieve, to finish off, I took a video of the falls on my phone for uploading to social media.

From here I headed back to the hotel for some food and a bite to eat. I also collected my good wife as we decided to head up to Glen Nevis at Forth William, I had read that there are some interesting water falls in this Glen.

Steall Falls, Glen Nevis.

The plan was to get to Steall Falls, as these looked impressive in the pictures I had seen of them, and it was somewhere where we had never visited below. Steall Falls was a very beautiful waterfall ostensibly tumbling 120m into a wide open scenic valley backed by tall mountains of the Nevis Gorge.

It’s said to be Scotland’s second highest waterfall, which (if true) would be fitting considering it is in close proximity to Ben Nevis, which is the tallest mountain in Britain.

The Hike to Steall Falls began our hike at a car park at the end of the road passing right near the head of Glen Nevis.

From there, we went on a well-established trail that before long started to climb as well as get rockier as it clung to ledges on the north side of the Nevis Gorge. At this point Carole made the decision that she could not continue due to the more challenging conditions that we were encountering. For the most part, the ledges were fairly wide enough to keep us from being too nervous about drop-offs, with some of drop-offs being significant enough to induce butterflies in our stomachs if we were to step closer to the edge.

As we continued on the now-seemingly-unending climb, the valley then narrowed to a point where we were in a gorge as the rocky walls closed in on both sides.

Meanwhile, the Water of Nevis (the river passing through the valley) could be heard even louder.

Eventually after getting through this narrow and rocky gorge section, the climb levelled out and we found ourselves in an open valley, and the falls could be seen at the far end of the plato.

I was conscious that it was now getting late in the afternoon and that the light was fading, I needed to get back to the car in reasonable daylight, so the photo options were to stay at the far side of the plato and try to pick out any reasonable images of the falls. It took me30 to 45 minutes to capture my images, with the light now becoming dusk, so I quickly pack up and conditioned my mind to getting back down the Glen to the car as quick as possible but in one piece.

This brings to an end, our waterfall exploits in and around Glencoe, to follow is the blog of how I got to a special river with the help of a fellow landscape photographer.

We were fortunate to have a short visit to Glencoe planned between Christmas and the New Year where we would be staying at the Kingshouse Hotel. The forecast for the days that we would be there was nothing special for this time of year, wind and lots of rain, how this was to change.

On the day we travelled up to Glencoe the weather was bitterly cold, and as we travelled further into Scotland snow became more evident, when we got to Loch Lomond the road verges were white with snow, but the roads remained clear.

As we began to gain height after Loch Lomond on the way to Crairnlarich we passed several snow ploughs, which was a worry but exciting at what may lay ahead, when we reached Rannoch Moor the conditions were unbelievable, thick white snow in all directions, with the islands in Loch Ba looking exquisite, being covered in snow which contrasted against the dark background, sadly we were unable to stop to take any photos as the roadside lay-byes and parking areas were buried by snow, so we had no option but to reluctantly continue driving to our destination.

When we got there, we faced the most challenging part of the journey, getting form the A82 to the hotel car park, a distance of several hundred meters. This road was compacted snow, which had layer of ice formed on the top if it which made driving a very interesting! We checked-in and took stock has we unpacked, was it really practical to drive out in the conditions bearing in mind that we needed to get to the A82 from the hotel, then were reliant on finding parking spaces from where we could take photos. We decided that the logical option was to stay put and enjoy the Hotels hospitality.

We arose early the next morning to go and get an early breakfast from where we tried to glimpse what the conditions were like outside through the dining room windows. Once breakfast was had (it was gorgeous) we took a stroll outside only to find it was freezing cold and that the car park was still covered in a layer of compacted snow and the road from the Hotel was looking quite treacherous. So after considering our options we decided that the photography options would be on foot and local to the hotel. So off we went to get changed and wrapped up for what was in front of us.   

As I went for a walk around the area close to the hotel, before I trudged up to the Cauldron Falls where I spent some time taking shots of the falls and looking down the valley towards the Buchaille Etive and Beinn a Chrulsaiste, from this view point it could be seen how much the snow had been washed away by the falling rain through the night. I spent a couple of hours setting up compositions around the falls before I set off back down to the hotel where we had a bite to eat and a lovely hot cuppa to warm us up before we got in the car to head up to Rannoch Moor to see what the conditions were like, hoping for these to be as good as they were the day before.

Frustratingly I had to drive past the place where I wanted to stop on Rannoch Moor due to a bloody lorry being about 6 foot off my rear bumper, not to disappointed, the 1-mile detour wasn’t that bad. At the parking area I set off looking for some compositions as I have never visited to this place before.

I soon realised that trudging over heather that was covered in 9 inches of snow was quite hard, I was soon huffing and puffing like the old man I am becoming.

I followed the stream round the headland hoping to find a good composition, unfortunately this was not to be, so I retraced my tracks back to the road then decided to trek along the road to the next inlet,

I again headed for the water’s edge to try and pick out any compositions, I soon became frustrated again as the background was blending into the flat sky’s. I didn’t spend too long here as I was struggling to get any decent images.

We decided to head down the valley to get to Lagangarbh Hut that sits on the lower slopes of the Buchaille Etive Mor. Unfortunately, even though the distance travelled was only a couple of miles from the hotel, the rain was belting down, there was no way that I was getting out to try and take a photo in these conditions. We sat in the car for 20 minutes or so before we called it a day.

During the evening we got to really appreciate the staff of the hotel, they were so friendly and helpful, nothing was any issue to them. The food service and drinks were excellent.

The next morning we arose with the same plan as the day before, an early breakfast and then assess the conditions to what we will do. After another hearty and thoroughly enjoyable breakfast, we waited for the light to improve only to see that the heavens had opened again.

I decided to head down the valley of Glencoe as I was looking to photograph the large waterfall at the meeting of three waters, and to try and get the shots at the hut that we didn’t do the day before. I pulled up at the hut, but new immediately that the constant rain would make this a nogoer, so I continued to the falls where I parked up and began waiting for the light to improve.

After a 30 minute wait the light was still very dark, due to the heavy cloud cover and the constant heavy rain, so even though I was intending to get under the bridge to take the photo, the very dark conditions would not allow me to get the shutter speeds that I was looking for, yet again another location was a washout, there was now nothing more to do, other than head to the  a few hours relaxation before we began out long journey home.

The conclusion to this short trip up to Glencoe is that we had a very enjoyable stay at the Kingshouse Hotel, we can highly recommend this hotel for its location, facilities and its staff, who we found to be excellent throughout our stay. The photography was a little disappointing, especially when you consider how lucky we were to arrive in such wonderful snow-covered conditions, but just to be out and about in these weather conditions was a joy.

Until the next chapter, thank you for reading, and viewing this blog and photos.