Two hundred and seventy-five years ago, Jacobite forces smashed their way down the Great Glen like a row of falling dominoes, taking Fort Augustus in March 1746 and turning south for the last government stronghold. Fort William held. The garrison fired heated shot at the besiegers, sailors from HMS Baltimore raided up and down Loch Linnhe, and after two weeks of inconclusive bombardment the Jacobites packed up and marched away toward Culloden. The fort survived. The town that grew up beside it now welcomes coach parties and West Highland Way hikers, and the high street sells tartan in clan patterns that did not exist before Walter Scott invented them. Behind the town, Ben Nevis rises 1,345 metres into the clouds. Climbers, in clean weather and in foul, are always starting up the Mountain Track.
The Great Glen is a fault line, a clean diagonal slash across the Scottish Highlands containing a chain of lochs: Lochy, Oich, Ness. At the southwest end, the valley floods with seawater to form Loch Linnhe, a true fjord open to the Atlantic. London, suspicious of the Highlands, lined this natural corridor with fortresses: Inverness Castle and Fort George at the north end, Fort Augustus in the middle, Fort William at the south. Fort William's original settlement and medieval castle stood at Inverlochy a few miles north, but the town gravitated south to the new garrison and harbour. The Gaelic name for the place was An Gearasdan, simply the garrison. Today's 5,630 residents, plus another 5,000 in the satellite villages of Inverlochy, Caol, Banavie and Corpach, share the only sizeable settlement for fifty miles in any direction.
By the early 1800s the Napoleonic Wars had made the English Channel dangerous for shipping, and Cape Wrath at the far north of Scotland was always dangerous regardless. Britain needed an interior shortcut. Thomas Telford got the commission, ran an Act of Parliament through in 1803, and spent the next nineteen years carving the Caledonian Canal through the Great Glen. The canal opened in 1822. By then peace with France had made it strategically pointless, and modern shipping had already outgrown its locks. It limped along, fell into disrepair, and was eventually rescued for pleasure craft. The canal still runs through the town, climbing from Loch Linnhe up Neptune's Staircase at Banavie, an eight-lock flight that Telford built to lift boats sixty-four feet. It remains the longest staircase lock in Britain.
Ben Nevis rises east of town, granite and weather-beaten, its summit plateau usually hidden in cloud. At 1,345 metres (4,413 feet) it is the highest point in the British Isles, but height understates the climb: the start is nearly at sea level, so every metre is yours to earn. The Mountain Track from Glen Nevis visitor centre is the standard route, an arduous slog that becomes serious mountaineering in winter. The CMD Arete is steeper and more exposed. The North Face, accessible from the Nevis Range gondola at Aonach Mor, contains some of Britain's hardest winter routes. The Allt a' Mhuilinn drains the north face into the Ben Nevis Distillery in town, where it becomes whisky. South across the river are the Mamores, a parallel ridge offering better views of Ben Nevis itself than the climb up its own slopes.
The West Highland Railway reached Fort William in 1894 and the tourism economy boomed. Tourists today still arrive by sleeper from London Euston, the Caledonian Highland Sleeper running Sunday through Friday, departing London around 9:30 PM and arriving in Fort William at 10 AM. From the station, the Jacobite steam train runs the heritage route west to Mallaig daily from April through October, crossing the curved twenty-one-arch Glenfinnan Viaduct that millions now recognise from Harry Potter. Buses connect Glasgow, Inverness, Oban and Skye. Walkers complete the West Highland Way from Milngavie here and often turn around to start the Great Glen Way to Inverness. The High Street trades in shortbread and tartan. The shinty club plays in the Mowi Premiership. The rain falls. The hills, when they show themselves, take the breath away.
Fort William sits at 56.817 degrees North, 5.110 degrees West, at the head of Loch Linnhe and the foot of the Great Glen in the western Scottish Highlands. Ben Nevis rises immediately east to 4,413 feet. The nearest airport is Oban (EGEO) about 35 nautical miles south, used for Hebridean schools. Glasgow (EGPF) is the main commercial gateway, 90 nautical miles south. Inverness (EGPE) lies 60 nautical miles northeast at the far end of the Great Glen. Best viewed at 4,000 to 6,000 feet AGL to capture the town, Loch Linnhe, the Caledonian Canal and Ben Nevis together. Western Highland weather is unpredictable and often hostile; the area receives over 80 inches of rain annually, with low cloud common.