Qualla: Corrieshalloch Gorge

Corrieshalloch Gorge: Introduction

Sat, 30 May 2026 00:00:00 GMT

Photo credit Mike Dodman, CC BY-SA 2.0. The Gaelic name is *Coire Shalach* - the unattractive corrie - and you can hear in it exactly what a working Highlander once thought of the place. A slot in the hills sixty metres deep, too narrow to graze, too steep to plough, a confounded nuisance to anyone trying to move cattle from one side to the other. Then the Victorians arrived with their new taste for the sublime, slung a suspension footbridge across the gap, and rebranded the unattractive corrie as one of the most photographed gorges in Scotland. Today a National Trust honesty box at the trailhead takes £2 for parking, and the wind that runs through the ravine carries the boom of the Abhainn Droma plunging through the Falls of Measach into the cleft below.

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Image: Mike Dodman | CC BY-SA 2.0

Corrieshalloch Gorge: A Slot Carved by Meltwater

Sat, 30 May 2026 00:00:00 GMT

Photo credit Chris, CC BY-SA 2.0. Corrieshalloch is a textbook glacial slot gorge, cut by an enormous volume of meltwater pouring off the retreating ice that once buried the western Highlands. The Abhainn Droma still drains through it, sliding the last few metres over the lip of the Falls of Measach before disapp...

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Image: Chris | CC BY-SA 2.0

Corrieshalloch Gorge: What Grows Where Goats Cannot

Sat, 30 May 2026 00:00:00 GMT

Photo credit Graham Lewis, CC BY 2.0. The genius of a gorge as a habitat is that almost nothing four-legged can get to its walls. Centuries of grazing have stripped most of Wester Ross of its woodland understorey, but Corrieshalloch's dark, humid sides preserve a slice of what the surrounding hills probably looked li...

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Image: Graham Lewis | CC BY 2.0

Corrieshalloch Gorge: Protection and a Quiet Battle

Sat, 30 May 2026 00:00:00 GMT

Photo credit UAMinor, CC BY-SA 4.0. The National Trust for Scotland has owned Corrieshalloch since 1945, managing it jointly with NatureScot, and it is classified by the IUCN as a Category III protected area. In December 2019 a £2.3 million investment was announced for upgraded parking and a new visitor centre - a ...

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Image: UAMinor | CC BY-SA 4.0