Yesterday, I went for a long walk in Gleann Nibheis. It was a poor decision, for two reasons.
Firstly, I have avoided this walk for years, because it is usually really busy. I thought it would be less busy in mid-November. Nope. It was like Sauchiehall Street at Christmas.
I don't mind meeting a few people when I am in the countryside, but not hundreds.
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Secondly, landscape photography was really challenging. The glen is very narrow with steep sides, and runs (roughly) east - west. So, as it was cloudless, the tops were bathed in golden light from the low-lying November sun, but in the glen it was almost like night.
If I had thought about it beforehand, I could have brought the tripod and done some HDR shots. There is nothing like being wise after the event.
The first photo is looking back down the single-track, tarmac road, that snakes through the glen for about half of its length. This part of the glen ran more north - south, so, got some of the sunshine.
The second photo shows the steep sides of the glen.
BTW
The lower part of the glen was used for filming the early scenes for the 1995 epic movie Braveheart. The film crew constructed the William Wallace village (which was mostly a wooden fort) and a car park for the production vehicles. The car park still exists, and is called the "Braveheart Car Park" (inventive, huh).
For most of the distance, the path is very good, although rather unusual in its construction. In many sections the path consists of large rocks with big gaps in-between. It is like navigating stepping stones over a very long distance.
Some people clearly struggled with the required physical effort. Others were anxious about possibly losing their footing, as there was a considerable drop from the path to the bottom of the glen.
One of the most famous features in Gleann Nebheis is An Steall Bàn (Steall Falls). In English it is called falls or waterfall, although in reality it is more of a cascade. However, regardless, it is impressive at 120m high. I'd like to go back some day when there is better light.
In the Highlands we have proper bridges. None of your mamby-pamby ones with wooden boards, just three bits of wire. It is all you need. Indiana Jones would be proud.
The bridge is a short distance downstream from the falls.
@2ck
About 1.5m between each hawser. The technique is to walk across the bottom hawser, like a tightrope walker, while holding onto the two top hawsers.