Once Christmas was done, we were eagerly waiting to begin our three-day trip to Glencoe, staying at the lovely Kingshouse Hotel. The weather forecast was looking very favourable during our stay, cold with a chance of snow.
We took a leisurely drive up to Glencoe making several stops to stretch our legs, as we came to Loch Lomond the temperature was dropping, and there was a light covering of snow on the higher mountains.
As we drove onto Rannoch Moor, our eyes widened as we saw the view in front of us, simply stunning, ice-covered Lochs, low cloud circulating the mountains, and the sun beginning its long slow decent to the west which was beginning to cast lovely light onto the mountains,
As we headed over the ridge to begin the long decent into Glencoe, the “Buckel” was crowned with a circle of clouds which were being illuminated by the afore mentioned sun, I decided to again drive up to the Blackrock Cottage to get a few shots, I’ve been here several times but always got reasonable images, this time though, the light made all the difference, well worth the stop off.
I was surprised how busy the road was that passes the cottage and then noticed how busy the ski-centre was, the car parked looked full, quite unusual for this time of year.
From here we headed to the Kingshouse Hotel where we would get Carole checked in, and the plan was for me to head out to get some photography of what remained of the afternoon light.
I left Carole with a nice cup of tea and a snack as there was going to be a short wait for her to get to the room.
With her blessing, I head back up the Glen towards Rannoch Moor, having a idea in my head of what I would like to photograph.
As I approached Loch Ba, I wanted to stop here and head out over the moor to get some images of the remaining sun hitting the mountains to the east, these being Glas Bheinn, Leathad Beag and Coire na Meinne, (don’t ask me to pronounce these names lol).
Unfortunately, there was a very large lorry on my rear bumper which prevented me stopping at the road-side layby, this meant that I had to continue onwards until I found a marked layby where I could turn round, this little episode lost me about 20 minutes, which meant that I missed the best of the light.
On my return journey, I managed to pull up in the layby, and I was soon changed and trudging over the moor to try and find a bit of high ground.
It was a rush, but I got the tripod sorted, camera out of the bag, and composed a image of the frozen Loch with the mountains being light with the orange glow form the setting sun.
During the time I was here I had a short and interesting conversation with a lady who had travelled all the way from Bordeaux in France to spend Christmas in the Scottish Highlands.
The light soon disappeared, and I was surprised how dark it had become in the short time that I had been here, it was nearly dark enough for me to use a torch to re-trace my route back to the car.
I headed back to the hotel to get settled into our room and to look forward to a evening meal, it had been along days travel from Cumbria!
During the evening we discussed our plans for the rest of our stay, sunrise was the same time has breakfast, so something would need to give to make this work, so we decided to get breakfast as early as possible, this would allow me to head out with the camera for 2 to 3 hours, then return, and allow us the rest of the day to get out for some walks and sightseeing.
Day 1
So an early alarm for the next morning, breakfast was devoured and I was heading back up to Rannoch Moor in the hope that I would witness an interesting sunrise, with the plan of locating on the eastern shore of Lochan na h-Achlaise.
After some time, I found a suitable location and got set up waiting for some light to develop, it was bitterly cold, minus 6 degrees, so I was well wrapped up.
There were soon highlights of pink in the sky, which got me pressing the camera shutter button, unfortunately these conditions didn’t hang around long, but the conditions remained conducive to photography.
After about 50 minutes, I mover further around the shoreline of the Loch to try and find different compositions, there were many small islands between me and the backdrop of mountains, but it was very difficult to get any separation of these.
I persevered, to get some reasonable photos, as well as some detail shots of the frost on the branches and reeds along the shoreline, encased in frozen water.
Not long after this, the sun rose above the surrounding mountains, this produced hard, harsh light immediately, so I decided to retreat to the car and make my plans of where to go now.
As I was driving back into the Glen, I noticed that once the sun rose over the mountains along the ski slope side of the valley, this might hit the Buachaille Etive Mor, I began to think of where I could head too, to create a decent composition.
I decided to go to the Cauldron Falls which are above the Kingshouse Hotel, I have been to this location before, but not for a couple of years, the freezing conditions might create something original.
After a short trek across the moor from the West Highland Way path, I soon found the falls, which were virtually frozen solid, all that remained were several small areas of flowing water.
I took a few images which, at the time I thought were reasonable photos, but suddenly, the sun hit the mid ground and the “Buckle” which totally changed the scene.
All I had to do was press the camera shutter to get some very good images.
Like before, once the sun was up and over the ridgeline, the light became very harsh, so it was time to pack up and head back to the hotel.
After a shower and change, a lovely warm cup of tea which washed down several pieces of shortbread, we decided to head to Glencoe Lochan for a leisurely walk around this lovely area. When we arrived, we were surprised to see that the car park was full, and the walks were well populated, again, a surprise for this time of year.
After a couple of hours at the Lochan we head for Glencoe village to get some supplies and have a wander about.
After this we headed back to the hotel for an early evening meal, and relaxation for the evening.
Day 2
Day 2 set off the same as Day 1 with an early breakfast, then I was off out, this time to the Lagangarbh Hut, otherwise known as the “Wee White House” on the lower slopes of the Buachaille Etive Mor, where I was hoping for more of the same from the day before sunrise, i.e., a nice pink coloured sky.
As I approached the parking area on the main A82 road, I was amazed to find that the layby on the opposite side of the road was already full, and that there were a large number of vehicle’s parked on the rough track leading down to the Lagangarbh Hut, I had to drive past as I could not see any parking places, so I turned round at the mountain rescue helipad and slowly drove back towards the parking areas to try and find a parking place, luckily a very slow drive down the track got me to a spare parking place.
I was surprised to see so many people setting off to climb/hike up the Buckle, there must have been around 20/30 people in total, whilst I was here taking photos, I could follow the early starters as they began heading up the side of the mountain.
The conditions were cold again, minus 6 this morning, with the ground covered in a white frost, the River Coe was frozen over which made for some interesting compositions.
I set off using the foreground as a leading line which included Lagangarbh Hut and the Buachaille Etive Mor, then moving down to the edge of the river to include this as the foreground.
From here I moved further along the river capturing a shot looking back towards the view, and finally I set up to capture a 7 shot panoramic of the whole scene.
I then retreated to the car to drop off the camera stuff and collect my drone; I wanted to try and recreate a shot that I took many years ago when I hiked up to the top of Bienn a Chrulaiste looking across to the Buckle and including elements of the Glen.
I’m not as fit as I was, so hiking up the mountain was out of the question, so I was hoping that the drone would be a easy option for me to capture this shot.
I’m relatively new to using a drone, I am still learning the art of smooth movement of the drone to produce reasonable video.
I got myself in a position on the lower slope of Bienn a Chrulaiste on the Wests Highland Way path, and launched the drone, once at a reasonable height I got it into position to take several images which I would stitch together to make a panoramic image of the view.
I again tried to take some video footage with the drone flying along the Glen then raising the gimbal to produce a expanding view of the Glen, unfortunately when I viewed this footage it was very stop – start and jerky which is not suitable to use.
Once I captured the photos that I needed from the drone it was time to return to the car and head back to the hotel.
After a wash and change, we headed to the Glencoe visitors centre for a look around, we found this a worthwhile visit as there are loads of information to view, and we visited the Turf and Creel house, built using the same materials and techniques as those used in the 1600’s.
You can walk around and into the building and provides a very realistic understanding of how people lived all those years ago.
We would recommend a visit to this centre; it is a very informative and enjoyable experience.
On the way back to the hotel we stopped off at the Buachaille Etive viewpoint at the River Coupall, just to take a look around and assess the conditions, what is normally a very boggy ground underfoot was frozen solid, so no need for wellies, but the water levels in the river were very low, so low that there was no flow over the little falls that are normally used as foreground when shooting from here.
What water was flowing was almost frozen solid, much like the Cauldron Falls the day before. I made a mental note to return the following morning in the hope that sunrise would bring some suable conditions.
Day 3
As I have alluded to above, this morning’s location was going to be the River Coupall, so after another early breakfast, and de-icing the car I took the short drive to the car park at the head of Glen Etive to take photographs of the Buckle.
Another bitterly cold morning -8 today, so I was well wrapped up against the elements. The best thing about this location is that it is only 2 minutes form the car park, I arrived in the blue hour, so composed my initial shot and waited for the conditions to develop.
The consensus of my photography here was get set up and take photos as the conditions change, so I ended up with many images of the same view, but slightly different lighting conditions, which I would need to select my favourite ones in post.
Once I was happy with the images I had captured at this location, I took a brief walk along the riverbank to see if there were any shots to be had.
It was now time to head back to the hotel and check out as today was travel home day, thinking that my photography was finished for the trip, we packed the car, and set off for the long journey home.
We didn’t get far before we just had to stop, as we came over the ridge and got our view of Rannoch Moor, the view was amazing, low-lying mists, low light, and hoar frost on most of the trees that you could see.
We stopped at the first available layby and grabbed the camera bag, scrambled up the nearest hill to capture the best shots that I could.
Some of the trees looked amazing covered in frost but light by the low-lying sun in the south-eastern sky.
An unscheduled but enjoyable stop to round off our winter wonderland trip to Glencoe.
Thank you for finding the time to read this article, until next time, stay safe and well.
