12 guides
Loch Lomond's Island Count: When Nobody Agrees How Many There Are
Depending on water level, time of year, and what you're willing to call an island, Loch Lomond has between 30 and 60 islands. Some are inhabited, some have wallabies, and some only exist when the loch is low enough to make them count.
Loch Ericht: When a Loch Gets Dammed and Nobody Notices Because It Always Looked Deep
Loch Ericht is 23 kilometres long, sits at 350 metres elevation, and was raised by a hydroelectric dam in 1957 — but it looked remote and glacial before anyone touched it. It's the tenth-largest loch in Scotland and you've probably never heard of it unless you've walked the hills between Rannoch and Dalwhinnie.
Loch Maree: When Five Islands Had a Saint, a Viking, and a Cure for Insanity
Loch Maree's islands once hosted a monastery, a Viking burial, and a holy well where the insane were dunked then tied to a tree overnight. The fourth-largest freshwater loch in Scotland comes with 60 islands, ancient oaks, and a treatment regime that definitely wouldn't pass modern ethics.
The Loch Shiel Length Problem: When Twenty Miles of Water Has No Road Alongside It
Loch Shiel runs for twenty miles through the West Highlands and you can't drive along either shore — there's a minor road at the southern end and nothing else. It's the fourth-longest loch in Scotland and one of the least accessible, which is probably why it played Hogwarts' lake in the films.
Loch Katrine: When Glasgow's Drinking Water Came From Thirty-Four Miles Away
Loch Katrine has been supplying Glasgow with water since 1859, when they built aqueducts across the Southern Highlands because the city's wells were killing people. The loch still provides most of Glasgow's drinking water, and the Victorian infrastructure is still doing the job over 160 years later.
Sea Lochs vs Freshwater Lochs: What's the Difference?
Scotland's sea lochs are tidal saltwater inlets, not lakes. Here's how Loch Fyne and friends differ from their freshwater cousins.
How Many Lochs Does Scotland Have? Nobody Quite Agrees
Scotland has over 30,000 lochs, but the exact count depends on size definitions and mapping scale. Here's why a definitive list remains elusive.
Loch Awe: Scotland's Longest Loch Goes Its Own Way
Scotland's longest freshwater loch stretches 41km on an unusual southwest-northeast axis, cutting across the landscape in its own direction.
Loch Ness Volume: When Twenty-Three Miles Hold More Water Than Every English Lake Combined
Loch Ness contains more freshwater than all the lakes in England and Wales added together — about 7.45 cubic kilometres of it, in a glacial trench reaching roughly 230 metres deep. It's Scotland's second-largest loch by surface area but largest by volume, and its sheer size and peat-stained water make comprehensive searching difficult.
Loch Arkaig: When the Road to Nowhere Takes Fourteen Miles and the Jacobite Gold Stayed Lost
Loch Arkaig sits at the end of a single-track road that runs about fourteen miles from Achnacarry, Clan Cameron's seat, along a loch shore where gold intended for the Jacobites was hidden in 1746 and its full fate remains unresolved. The same remote glen trained commandos during World War Two and now serves as the gateway to Glen Dessarry and some of Scotland's least-visited mountains.
Loch Beoraid and Prince Charlie's Cave: When a Fugitive Needed Water and a Hiding Place in the Same Glen
Tradition says Bonnie Prince Charlie sheltered in a cave west of Loch Beoraid after Culloden. The Highland Council route from Arieniskill reaches the cave after about 1½ miles and the loch roughly half a mile later; continuing to Meoble and Loch Morar makes a demanding nine-mile return.
Loch Morar: When Britain's Deepest Freshwater Has a Monster Nobody Talks About
At 310 metres deep, Loch Morar makes Loch Ness look shallow — and it has its own monster legend, a disputed name origin, and far fewer visitors. Britain's deepest freshwater loch lies near Morar on the west coast, about 42 road miles from Fort William.