Kintail

Kintail lies at the head of Loch Duich in the Northwest Highlands, a mountainous area where ridges and peaks rise steeply from narrow glens and the sea. The name comes from the Gaelic Cinn t-Sàile, meaning ‘head of the salt water’, describing its position at the inland end of the long sea loch. Glen Shiel cuts through the heart of the range, while the A87 road runs along its southern edge between Loch Duich and Loch Cluanie. To the north, Strath Croe and Gleann Gaorsaic mark the boundary, and to the east An Caorann Mòr closes the valley system. The main settlement is Morvich, home to the Kintail Mountain Rescue Team and a Caravan Club campsite. The Kintail National Scenic Area covers 42,380 acres, protecting some of the finest mountain scenery in the Highlands. Within it stand the Five Sisters of Kintail, a five-mile ridge of pointed summits that form a popular hillwalking route. Three of these peaks are full Munros, while the ridge continues east to include three more Munros known as the Brothers of Kintail. Beinn Fhada is another prominent mountain in the area. Most of Kintail belongs to the National Trust for Scotland, which also owns the Falls of Glomach, one of Britain’s highest waterfalls. Visitors find a landscape of steep-sided glens and towering ridges, with narrow valleys leading down to Loch Duich. Golden eagles and merlins circle above, while otters and pine martens live along the wooded lower slopes. Red deer graze the lower mountainsides, and a herd of feral goats, descendants of Neolithic introductions, roams the higher ground. Near Shiel Bridge stands Cill Fhearchair, a 2,000-year-old standing stone within a burial ground. The area also holds Prince Charlie’s Stone, where Charles Edward Stuart hid in 1746 after the Battle of Culloden.