Steall Waterfall: The Two Hundred Metres We Nearly Turned Back On

We nearly turned back. That's not the version you'll get from most write-ups of this walk. It was December, properly cold, and the path through the Nevis Gorge — treacherous even on a good day, cut into a cliffside above the river — was sheeted in ice. Kersty and I were in ordinary hiking shoes, nothing built for that, and spent long stretches slipping rather than walking. Other walkers gave up around us and turned back. At one point, so did we — seriously considered it — because we couldn't see the waterfall yet and had no idea we were only a couple of hundred metres away.

We're glad we didn't. What follows is the honest account of that walk — the gorge path underfoot, the wobbly wire bridge everyone either loves or bottles, and the real numbers behind Scotland's second-highest waterfall (officially, anyway — Walkhighlands quietly call it third) — so you know what you're taking on before you set off, whatever the weather's doing.

Quick reference:

• Distance: about 2 miles (3.5km) round trip from the road-end car park
• Time: 1.5–2 hours at a steady pace — longer if the ice has you stopping every few steps, as it did us
• Difficulty: rough and uneven throughout, with scrambling above real drops — not a walk for pushchairs, wheelchairs, or an easy stroll

The Gorge That Nearly Beat Us

The walk starts at the road end in Glen Nevis, through woodland before the path narrows into the gorge proper — steep-sided enough that one guide calls it the only truly Alpine gorge in Britain. Even dry, it's rough, with a stretch cut straight out of the rock and a stepped, hand-railed climb above real drops. In December, iced over, it was something else. We were slipping on rock we could barely see was frozen, and more than once watched other walkers turn back rather than risk it. What amazed us was the dogs — plenty of them were out on that ice too, trotting over ground we could barely stay upright on, four paws clearly built for this better than two boots ever were. We came close to giving up ourselves at that point — not because the ice felt like too much, but because we simply didn't know how far we had left. No waterfall in sight, just more gorge, more ice. Only once we pushed past that point did the trees fall away and we realised we'd been a couple of hundred metres from the meadow the whole time.

Second-Highest, Depending Who You Ask

Its Gaelic name, An Steall Bàn, means "the white spout" — a fair description. The water drops 120 metres in a single fall from the hanging valley of the Allt Coire a' Mhail, a tributary glen left stranded above the main glen floor by the last ice age. Most sources, including Wikipedia and the John Muir Trust, call it Scotland's second-highest waterfall. Walkhighlands' own route page — arguably the most reliable word on this walk — quietly disagrees, calling it third at 105 metres. Nobody's lying; height is fiddly to measure on a broken, tiered drop. Britain's actual tallest, Eas a' Chual Aluinn in Assynt, runs to 200 metres, and Falls of Glomach in Kintail sits close behind Steall at 113 — close enough that the argument makes sense in person.

The Bridge Everyone Argues About

Through the gorge and into Steall Meadows, the falls are directly ahead, and so is the thing most people remember the walk for: a three-wire bridge over the Water of Nevis, one wire underfoot and two to hold, swaying as you cross one person at a time. It's not new trouble — in May 2010 a cable snapped mid-crossing while a group of Dutch students were on it, three taken to hospital in Fort William. The bridge was repaired and has been maintained on a two-year survey cycle by the John Muir Trust ever since. Opinion is genuinely split: some walkers call it huge fun, others admit to bottling it outright. We didn't cross — not after the morning we'd already had — but sat and watched other people do it for a good while, which was entertainment enough in its own right. You don't need to cross it to see the falls properly either; the meadow view is excellent on its own.

When to Go, and When We'd Think Twice

Late spring and September are the safest bets for weather and for dodging the worst of the midges, brutal here from July into August. The falls are far more dramatic after rain or spring snowmelt than in a dry summer stretch. This has also become a genuinely busy path — the John Muir Trust counts around 60,000 walkers a year on this route alone, and is open about the erosion and litter pressure that popularity brings. Go early if you want it quiet. And if you're going in winter, as we did, go properly prepared — real boots, ideally poles, and a willingness to turn back if it doesn't feel right. We got away with it. That's not quite the same as it having been a good idea.

How It Stacks Up Against the Falls Near Loch Ness

If you're coming from Inverness, it's worth being clear-eyed about the choice. Falls of Foyers, on Loch Ness's south side, is a well-made, hand-railed set of viewing platforms about forty minutes out — genuinely lovely, and the falls Robert Burns wrote a poem about, but a stroll rather than a walk. Plodda Falls and Rogie Falls are similarly easy and close. Steall is a different proposition: an hour and a half to two hours' drive, then a proper mountain-terrain walk with real exposure and, if you fancy it, an optional dose of adrenaline. Not the convenient option. The one worth setting a whole morning aside for.

We got there in the end, and it was worth every slippery step. The meadow was full of people, walking the banks, queuing for the bridge, sitting on rocks with their lunches out. The weather held better than it had any right to — crisp, clear air, the falls roaring white against the rock, the whole glen lit up around us. Kersty and I sat a good while just watching the bridge crowd come and go before turning back down through the gorge, this time knowing exactly how far we had left to go. It turned into one of the best days we've had in the hills — but I still think about that couple of hundred metres, and how close we came to never seeing any of it.