The Glen runs in a straight line for some sixty miles. It has always been a major trade route. The Victorian engineer, Thomas Telford, was the first to realise the dream of a navigable waterway along the length of the Glen when he built the Caledonian Canal, linking the Atlantic at Loch Linnhe with the North Sea at Inverness, via the three lochs. The first half, within the Great Glen itself, is a gentle walk that makes extensive use of the Caledonian Canal towpath and elsewhere utilises forest paths, back lanes and part of the old Caledonian railway. The Glen lacks the scenic grandeur of the West Highland Way, and once the Ben Nevis range and the neighbouring Grey Corries group around Spean Bridge fall behind, the scenery is predominantly that of forested hills.
Vegetation is extensive - so much so that it often shuts out what scenery there is.
It is likely that your overall mental picture of the Great Glen will consist of two sides of a long, straight valley, each cloaked in a never-ending carpet of pine trees. Once Fort Augustus is reached, at the southwestern end of Loch Ness, things change substantially. We leave the Great Glen proper and strike out across the lonely moors on the eastern fringes of the Aird glens. Almost all of this second section of the Way lies along landrover tracks - a mix of forest, estate and old drove roads. The great mountain ranges to the west, laying between Loch Cluanie, Glen Affric, Glen Cannich and Glen Strathfarrar are occasionally glimpsed and their invitation is irresistable to many.