WILD CAMPING in glencoe WITH A 4 YEAR OLD: coire gabhail | THE HIDDEN VALLEY
i had hiked up to coire gabhail (the hidden valley) twice before; the first time in may 2021 when my daughter was 6 months old then again in may 2023 when she was 2.5 years, so when i had a free weekend & a promising forecast ahead in may 2025, there was only one place in my mind that made sense to head towards.
this hike starts at one of the most popular places in glencoe; the three sisters carpark, a tiny carpark barely off the main road with fantastic views.
knowing we were not only arriving here at around midday, but midday on a saturday with a sunny forecast, meant the likelihood of getting parked was super slim & i fully expected to have to park elsewhere & add milage on to get to/from the starting point. thankfully however, i managed to get parked within about 5 minutes of arriving. the one good thing (or bad, depending your views) is that most people who park here spend about 5 minutes taking in the views & getting photos then leaving, so the turnaround of spaces is pretty quick.
boots on, suncream on, water filled up & off we headed for our night in the glen.
the first half an hour (at littles pace) seen us climb down a pretty vertical set of stairs which had my heart twitching, across the river coe gorge bridge then back up a scramble path. the scramble has the help of a wire rope at the side for ease of climbing but little decided she'd rather go hands & knees than use this. she really enjoyed this start to the hike as the technical side gets her wee brain ticking more & adds the element of excitement to her hikes.
with how hot it was already & there being little to no shade from the sun, we decided to take this hike super slow. we were in no rush since we were camping at the top so little took advantage by stopping as much as possible to inspect the rocks & cool her feet in the streams. the trail was also incredibly busy with day hikers, so we were having to move aside a lot due to the size of my bag & the fact we were walking slower than everyone.
we stopped again just before the river crossing to rest our feet, hide in the shade of a enormous boulder & fill the water bladder for the last time until we reached back here in the morning. the crossing itself is no issue on a day like we had as there's stepping stones the whole way across so your feet don't have to get wet thankfully.
the final scramble before the top was one i was a bit unsure about, mainly because it's only about a foots width, so if little needed help then it would have to be from behind. it doesn't look hard on approach but once you're at the bottom you can see that it's pretty narrow to get up.
not surprisingly though little smashed this section out. she was like a mountain goat in her element, telling me that she can do it herself without help which she proved just fine.
once we reached the top where you can see down to the coire below i was super surprised to see there was no other tents pitched. we had passed a good 100 people on the trail throughout the day, so for none of them to be camping felt a tad strange. i was glad though, it meant we could find a pitch that suited us perfectly & didn't have to worry about getting too close to others.
this area is great for camping as it's all flat ground so it felt like that stress of having to find the 'perfect pitch' was gone & there was almost too much choice for pitches. however, little decided that an area around midway next to a lone tree would be perfect. so that's where our home for the night was!
by the time we had pitched & set up everything inside the sun had moved a fair bit in the sky & our area was in shade, making it a tad cold. we had started to make our dinner but decided to follow where the sun was shining instead & moved to the other side of the coire to get some of the warmth back. typical that not long after the food was on the stove again sun vanished behind the mountain for the night, putting us back into shade.
little wanted to explore about a little after dinner so we did that. she was amazed at the size of some of the fallen boulders & was determined that she would take one home to show her dad! i admire the belief in her own strength.
after a little bit of exploring we headed for the tent for a few games at uno (she won, multiple times) then off to bed for an earlyish night.
we woke around 0700 to the sound of people, much to my surprise. we had a very peaceful nights sleep so it was unexpected to be woken so early by voices. a quick nosey out the tent showed me that there was already about 3 or 4 groups of hikers already heading up the nearby munros. it was already looking to be another scoarcher of a day, so it was understandable that they'd be having an early start to beat the sun.
i also noticed there was 2 other tents in the coire with us. who knows what time they arrived at but all i know is they must've been super quiet setting up if we didn't hear them at all.
the view out the tent in the morning was beautiful. the sun was starting to come into the coire & it just looked amazing. it really felt great seeing that view in the morning after having it on my list for a long while. worth all the sweat on the way up!
with the logic of the morning hikers who woke us, we decided to pack up early & try get down to the carpark before the trail got too busy with more day hikers. we both weren't overly hungry & couldn't be bothered waiting around for our porridge to cook, so decided we would have breakfast on the move - granola bars, apples & rasins.
the realisation of knowing we were all downhill from here was fantastic. there's nothing better than seeing others struggle uphill while you're flying downhill.
we were about 80% back down when we stopped for a rest. there was a fair amount of people coming up so since we were moving to the side to let them past, we thought we might as well sit for a bit. we ended up sitting for about an hour in this spot. we could see the carpark from where we were so we knew we didn't have that much further to go but also the people watching from our spot was too good to rush away from. we could also hear a nearby bagpiper, who i'm assuming was at the carpark, which was another reason we stayed longer in that spot. it felt too peaceful to be sitting with a gorgeous view & hear the sound of pipes in the distance to leave.
eventually we did manage to pick ourselves off the ground to make our way back to the car. if we stayed any longer we probably would've become part of the earth.
the bag piper had sadly gone by the time we reached the carpark so we never got to see who they were.
little was delighted to be back at the car as she wanted to take her boots & socks off to swap them for her comfy crocs instead. understandable but super jealous since i didn't take comfy shoes to change into. rookie mistake by me! she had thanked me a few times on the way back down telling me she had a great time & that i planned such a fun adventure. could've cried right there on the spot, such a small comment meant so much to me. bless her heart, i made sure to tell her it was my pleasure & that i had a great time with her too.
