Hi
We are headed to Scotland in May for 2 weeks. We are interested in doing some hiking/ hill walking. I was wondering if anyone can suggest some challenging scenic walks that are 1 to 5 hrs in length in Skye, the Northern Highland, Glencoe/ Fort William and Inverness area. Thanks for any helf
This website will give you some ideas. http://walking.visitscotland.com/walks/ You will need to buy some maps - Ordnance Survey 1:25000 or 1:50000 or Harveys 1:40000 (particularly useful strip maps eg Great Glen Way, West Highland Way) .
You can walk, cycle or kayak the 73 miles from Fort William to Inverness along the Great Glen Way - see http://www.greatglenway.com/ Pretty flat and easy navigation, with good views of mountains, lochs and linking canals. May is a good month - midges won't be too numerous, and weather can be good, although you always need to be prepared for low cloud, high winds, cold, sun etc.
Why go such a long way to do such a short walk? You can't realistically expect to do a Munro (3000-foot mountain) and come back down in less than 5 hours unless you are very, very fit.
If you're driving, the shortest Munro walk I've done was the Tarmachan ridge, west of Ben Lawers in the southern Highlands. The carpark is pretty high up. If you haven't done any comparable mountain before you might find it a bit scary - nothing technically difficult but you are at one point walking along something like a garden wall with a 200-foot drop each side. Dramatic views. You could do that in five hours easily.
Weather in May is usually good, days are long, you can aim for a longer trip. Get the Scottish Mountaineering Club guidebook "The Munros" - despite the name, very little of it is actually mountaineering.
The Great Glen Way is a good one, I worked along the route for the last 3 years before moving on to a more exotic location (Shetland), having said that tho, its not really challenging with a lot of the route being along forestry roads. An excellent walk is the ridge above Loch Lochy, which takes in some staggering views (when you get the weather) up and down the Great Glen, there are some narrow sections but on the whole its a pretty easy ridge (when compared to the likes of the Aonach Eagach and the Cuillin Ridge) and good if you have never done one before.
Not knowing your hiking/walking experience level makes it hard to reccommend a set of walks that you would find challenging, sorry its the Mountain Leader in me. The Pap of Glencoe is a grand walk, The Two Gullies takes you around the base of Buchaille Etive Beag are good walks in Glencoe, on Skye there is Bla Bhen a knee crunching descent to say the least, 7 Sisters in Glenshiel, there's also a mammoth amount of walks at the head of Glen Garry, around Inverness there's Slioch, the area is full of walks large and small but each as rewarding as the other for lots of different reasons.
If you can I would suggest getting hold of the Ciccerone Guides 'Walking the Munros' volume 1 and 2 as these will cover the areas that you mentioned above. Then get hold of the OS or Harvey Maps you need and the ever important compass (although remember that this isn't going to work as well if you head into the Gabbro (Black Cuillin) on Skye as the rock is magnetic and monkeys about with the compass) and make sure you know how to use it (again its the ML/Ranger in me that makes me say such things not a reflection on your ability in the hills). As the others have said watch the weather, but there are a good few places in Ft William that display the Mountain Forecast so keeping tabs on that should be easy enough.
Hope all thats of use
Your quest is very vague. You are asking about walks anywhere in the north of Scotland up to 5 hours and also challenging to someone of whom we have no knowledge of fitness or experience of hill walking. I could list at least 200 walks which fall into your category but I am not going to. Get yourself a book/ read website and then come back with more specific questions if necessary. By the way ignore #2. there are no narrow ridges on Tarmachan and I can name at least 2 Munros you could do in less than 2 hours.
If you have a look at this website http://www.walkhighlands.co.uk/ you'll find something suitable. It covers most levels of walking and includes sections on the areas you are particularly interested in.
Hello Jay
Scotland is a wonderful country to walk in, and north Scotland (north of Glasgow and Edinburgh presumably) is a very large and varied area offering a great choice of walks that fit your criteria. Munros (mountains over 3,000 feet above sea level) are great and sometimes very challenging - but fantastic walks are not limited to these - lower hills can offer equally interesting walks (my favourite is Suilven). The websites noted above are very helpful and may assist you to focus your choices in terms of area, terrain, fitness and technical challenges. Be safe and enjoy yourself.