Clachaig Inn
The sign on the door reads 'No hawkers or Campbells.' It is a joke, mostly. The Clachaig Inn has been serving travelers in Glen Coe since the sixteenth century, and in all that time, the memory of what government soldiers -- many of them Campbells -- did to the MacDonalds on a February morning in 1692 has never quite faded from these walls. Three centuries later, you can still raise a glass to the dead in the same glen where they fell.
Under the Gully, Facing the Mountain
The inn sits toward the western end of Glen Coe, about three kilometers southeast of modern Glencoe village, on the old road just north of the A82 trunk road. Its position is dramatic even by Highland standards. Behind it rises Clachaig Gully, a precarious descent route from the west end of the Aonach Eagach ridge -- a scramble that seasoned climbers treat with considerable respect. Across the glen, the western shoulder of Bidean nam Bian drops away in stark vertical faces. At the time of the massacre, the village of Glencoe lay near the inn, though it has since been relocated further west. The inn endured, rooted to its spot between mountain and history.
Refuge for the Roped and the Restless
The Clachaig has long been the unofficial headquarters of the climbing community in Glen Coe. After a day on the Aonach Eagach -- the hairiest ridge scramble in mainland Britain, where a wrong step means a fatal fall on either side -- or a winter ascent of Bidean nam Bian's icy gullies, climbers descend to the inn's three bars for real ales and an extensive whisky collection. The Boots Bar, in particular, has the feel of a climbers' club: muddy footwear is not merely tolerated but expected. Live music fills the rooms on weekends. Sets for the film Made of Honour and for Harry Potter and the Prisoner of Azkaban were built in the surrounding area, bringing film crews to a landscape that needs no set dressing.
Where Memory Lives in the Walls
The Clachaig's longevity gives it a quality rare in Scottish hospitality: continuity of place. The mountains do not change. The gully above the inn has been spilling climbers and scree for millennia. The river still runs through the glen to Loch Leven. And the inn itself -- expanded, modernized, fitted with accommodation and proper kitchens -- remains tethered to the same ground where, for centuries, travelers have stopped to rest between journeys through some of Scotland's most demanding country. That sign about the Campbells may be wry, but it serves a purpose. It reminds every visitor that in Glen Coe, the past is not a separate country. It is the landscape itself.
From the Air
Clachaig Inn at 56.6644N, 5.0595W is located in the lower western end of Glen Coe, just north of the A82. The inn's buildings are small and may not be individually visible from altitude, but the glen itself is unmistakable -- a dramatic U-shaped valley. Best viewed at 2,000-3,000 ft. Nearest airport: Oban (EGEO) approximately 25 nm southwest. Expect turbulence in the glen due to mountain wave effects.