Glencoe
Glencoe is the most dramatic and most historically resonant mountain valley in Scotland, a great glacially carved trough in the western Highlands whose combination of towering mountain walls, the dark waters of the River Coe flowing through the valley floor and the melancholy historical associations of the Massacre of Glencoe create an atmosphere of brooding grandeur that has made it one of the most visited and most emotionally powerful landscapes in Britain. The National Trust for Scotland manages extensive areas of the glen and the surrounding mountains, and the visitor centre at the head of the valley provides orientation for the extraordinary landscape.
The mountains surrounding Glencoe are among the finest and most varied in Scotland. The Three Sisters, the great buttresses projecting from the south wall of the glen, and the Aonach Eagach ridge on the north wall, the most technically demanding ridge traverse in mainland Scotland, frame the valley in rock walls of enormous scale. Bidean nam Bian, the highest peak in the former county of Argyll at 1,150 metres, occupies the massif behind the Three Sisters and with its satellite peaks provides some of the finest mountain walking in the Highlands. Buachaille Etive Mòr at the eastern entrance to the glen, the great pyramid visible from the A82 approach, is one of the most photographed mountains in Scotland.
The Massacre of Glencoe in February 1692 is one of the most notorious acts of calculated treachery in Scottish history, when government soldiers billeted with the MacDonald clan turned on their hosts in the early morning and killed approximately thirty-eight men, women and children in an attack that violated the ancient Highland laws of hospitality and trust. The massacre was carried out on the orders of the Secretary of State for Scotland and with the knowledge of King William III, and the bitter memory of it has contributed to the atmosphere of the glen ever since.