Loch Etive

Loch Etive (Scottish Gaelic, Loch Eite) is a 30 km sea loch in Argyll and Bute, Scotland. It reaches the sea at Connel, 5 km north of Oban. It measures 31.6 km (19³⁄₄ miles) long and from 1.2 km (³⁄₄ mile) to 1.6 km (1 mi) wide. Its depth varies greatly, up to a maximum of 150 m (490 ft).

The name Etive is believed to mean "little ugly one" from the Gaelic goddess associated with the loch. It heads east for half its length alongside the main road and rail link to Oban, before heading northeast into mountainous terrain. A road along Glen Etive makes the head of the loch accessible from Glen Coe. The narrow mouth of the loch results in its most unusual feature, the Falls of Lora. Part of the north bank has been designated a Special Area of Conservation in particular due to old sessile oak woods. Surprisingly, a small colony of around 20 common seals is resident in Loch Etive.

Just seaward of the mouth of the loch is Dunstaffnage Castle. This was a stronghold of the kingdom of Dál Riata until the 9th century, and possibly its centre at one time. It is believed to have held the Stone of Scone before its transfer to Scone Palace. The current ruins date from 1275. Cruises up Loch Etive followed by carriage trip to Glen Coe were started in 1881 as Oban developed as a fashionable resort.

Glen Etive

Glen Etive (Scottish Gaelic: Gleann Èite) is a glen in the Highlands of Scotland. The River Etive (Scottish Gaelic: Abhainn Èite) rises on the peaks surrounding Rannoch Moor, with several tributary streams coming together at the Kings House Hotel, at the head of Glen Coe. From the Kings House, the Etive flows for about 18 km, reaching the sea loch, Loch Etive. The river and its tributaries are popular with whitewater kayakers and at high water levels it is a test piece of the area and a classic run.

At the north end of Glen Etive lie the two mountains known as the "Herdsmen of Etive": Buachaille Etive Mòr and Buachaille Etive Beag. Other peaks accessible from the Glen include Ben Starav, located near the head of Loch Etive, and Beinn Fhionnlaidh on the northern side of the glen.

A narrow road from the Kings House Hotel runs down the glen, serving several houses and farms. This road ends at the head of the loch, though rough tracks continue along both shores.

The River Etive is one of Scotland's most popular and challenging white water kayaking runs. It provides a multitude of solid Grade 4(5) rapids with a variety of falls and pool drops.

Buachaille Etive Mòr

Buachaille Etive Mòr (Scottish Gaelic: Buachaille Eite Mòr, meaning "the great herdsman of Etive"), generally known to climbers simply as The Buachaille, is a mountain at the head of Glen Etive in the Highlands of Scotland. Its pyramidal form, as seen from the A82 road when travelling towards Glen Coe, makes it one of the most recognisable mountains in Scotland, and one of the most depicted on postcards and calendars.

Buachaille Etive Mòr takes the form of a ridge nearly five miles (8 km) in length, almost entirely encircled by the River Etive and its tributaries. The ridge contains four principal tops: from north-east to south-west these are Stob Dearg (1022 m), Stob na Doire (1011 m), Stob Coire Altruim (941 m) and Stob na Bròige (956 m). Stob Dearg and Stob na Bròige are both Munros; the latter was promoted to Munro status by the Scottish Mountaineering Club in 1997.

Ascent

The steep, craggy north-eastern face of Stob Dearg forms the classic aspect of the mountain as seen from the Kings House Hotel, and constitutes the most direct route of ascent for climbers and scramblers. Crowberry Ridge, a classic rock climb graded severe, was first climbed direct – and photographed – in 1900 by the Abraham brothers with Messrs Puttrell and Baker. Immediately to the left is Curved Ridge, one of the most famous scrambling routes.

Glen

A glen is a valley, typically one that is long, deep, and often glacially U-shaped, or one with a watercourse running through it. Whittow defines it as a "Scottish term for a deep valley in the Highlands" that is "narrower than a strath".

The word is Goidelic in origin: gleann in Irish and Scottish Gaelic, glion in Manx. In Manx, glan is also to be found meaning glen. It is cognate with Welsh glyn. The word is sometimes found in tautological placenames where its meaning was opaque to a new linguistic community, an example perhaps being Glendale (literally "valley valley") which is a combination of Norse "dale" and Gaelic "glen".

As the name of a river, it is thought to derive from the Irish word glan meaning clean, or the Welsh word gleindid meaning purity. An example is the Glens of Antrim in Northern Ireland where nine glens radiate out from the Antrim plateau to the sea along the coast between Ballycastle and Larne.

In the Finger Lakes Region of New York State, the southern ends of Seneca Lake and Cayuga Lake in particular are etched with glens, although in this region the term "glen" refers most frequently to a narrow gorge, as opposed to a wider valley or strath. The steep hills surrounding these lakes are filled with loose shale from glacial moraines. This material has eroded over the past 10,000 years to produce rocky glens (e.g. Watkins Glen and Treman State Parks) and waterfalls (e.g., Taughannock Falls) as rainfall has descended toward the lakes below.

Scotland

Scotland (/ˈskɒt.lənd/; Scots: [ˈskɔt.lənd]; Scottish Gaelic: Alba [ˈal̪ˠapə]) is a country that is part of the United Kingdom and covers the northern third of the island of Great Britain. It shares a border with England to the south, and is otherwise surrounded by the Atlantic Ocean, with the North Sea to the east and the North Channel and Irish Sea to the south-west. In addition to the mainland, the country is made up of more than 790 islands, including the Northern Isles and the Hebrides.

Edinburgh, the country's capital and second-largest city, was the hub of the Scottish Enlightenment of the 18th century, which transformed Scotland into one of the commercial, intellectual, and industrial powerhouses of Europe. Glasgow, Scotland's largest city, was once one of the world's leading industrial cities and now lies at the centre of the Greater Glasgow conurbation. Scottish waters consist of a large sector of the North Atlantic and the North Sea, containing the largest oil reserves in the European Union. This has given Aberdeen, the third-largest city in Scotland, the title of Europe's oil capital.