We have driven through Glen Coe many times but have never stopped to explore. A few years ago I had read about a hike to the Lost Valley (which is surrounded by the Three Sisters and where the MacDonalds supposedly hid their cattle) so we set off from Glasgow at 8am in order to arrive early and complete the hike on our way to Skye.

We drove to the Glen Coe Visitors Centre first so we could go to the toilets and then headed to the car park at the start of the trail which was just off the A82. We arrived at 10.30 and luckily got one of the last spaces in the car park as Stuart was able to squeeze the car onto the grassy verge.

^{Views of the Three Sisters and the start of the Hidden Valley hike from the car park}

We followed the path towards the mountains which takes you towards the river. At the river it was quite warm and shaded so we all had to put on bug spray as the midges started to attack us! The spray we had was quite strong and if it touched your mouth it made your lips go numb!

We crossed the river on the wooden bridge and immediately afterwards there was a very steep rock face to climb. Ropes had been put on the rocks to help if necessary but we didn’t need them! (Although on the return Stu and Izzy used them to pretend to abseil down the rocks while I went down on my bottom!)

The next bit of the hike – despite being uphill, was relatively easy but we soon reached the canyon where there were steep drops to the left of the path into the river. There were a few areas where I got a bit scared and had to walk as far to the right as possible but both Tom and Izzy were fine with it. We then walked through a rocky area before reaching the point on the river we needed to cross. We did keep wondering how the cows would have been able to walk the route!

We weren’t sure what to expect about crossing the river as I had read that we would probably get our feet wet. However – the water wasn’t particularly deep and there were stepping stones so we stayed dry!

The last bit of the hike involved quite an uphill climb and there was a rock face we needed to scramble up. At the end we weren’t sure which way to go. Tom disappeared off ahead and found the route but it took us a while to catch up with him!

At this point Tom and Izzy found a rock to play on whilst Stu and I headed towards the valley to admire the views and eat some Maryland Cookies. There were a few people there but it wasn’t very busy. As we had a long road trip ahead we didn’t descend into the valley but the views were spectacular. We had passed a group of hikers who were carrying tents so we guessed they had been wild camping in the valley which would have been cool.

We returned to the car the way we came – although getting down some of the rocks was much harder than climbing up them! The hike was 5km and took us about an hour and a half with an elevation gain of 298 metres.