Loch Coruisk is the inland loch inside the Black Cuill lava chamber on the Isle of Skye. You can get there by boat from Elgol in half an hour, which is how most visitors arrive. Or you can walk in, which is an altogether longer conversation.

This is a piece about doing Loch Coruisk on foot. It covers the three viable routes, the Bad Step (which is the obstacle that gets talked about and underestimated in roughly equal measure), timings that are honest rather than optimistic, and at the end a note about who each version of the walk is really for.

The three ways to Walk to Loch Coruisk

Three walks get you to the loch without a boat.

Elgol to Loch Coruisk via Camasunary and the Bad Step. The coastal route out of Elgol, tracing the shoreline around to Camasunary bay, along the shore of Loch na Creitheach, then round the back of Sgùrr na Stri to the south-east corner of Loch Coruisk. The Bad Step is on the last mile before the loch. This is the route most walkers take from Elgol to Coruisk and can be started from Coruisk House through Elgol

Sligachan to Loch Coruisk. Around nine miles each way, inland from the Sligachan Hotel through Glen Sligachan, past Loch an Athain and Harta Corrie, over the broad col at Druim Hain, then down to the loch. No Bad Step. Much boggier. Longer time on your feet than the mileage suggests. The classic Cuillin-through-the-middle walk.

The one-way combo. Boat from Elgol to Loch Coruisk with Bella Jane or Misty Isle (they carry walkers out on the first sailing), walk back via Camasunary and the Bad Step, or walk out via Sligachan. This is the most common configuration for a walker doing Coruisk once.

The Elgol route, mile by mile

The Elgol route sets off from -57.15, -6.10 and traces round Loch Scavaig to Camasunary bay.

There are sheep on the grass and often otters on the shore in the early morning. You are a third of the way to Loch Coruisk in terms of distance and about a fifth in terms of effort, so the ‘worst’ of the walking is still ahead of you.

From Camasunary bothy the path goes west along the coast. You ford the Abhainn nan Leac, which can be knee-deep in spate and ankle-deep in summer. If it is in spate, do not cross. The path climbs onto a shelf above the sea and traverses a steep-sided, broken coastline with Loch Scavaig below. Underfoot it is rough and slippery after rain, and several sections require care because the path is narrow and the drop is real.

You reach the Bad Step about two miles before the loch.

The Bad Step

The Bad Step is a sloping rock gangway, set into a steeper rock face, about fifteen feet above the sea at high tide. You cross it by placing your feet in a gently rising crack that runs diagonally up the slab, with your hands on the rock above. A grade 1 to 2 scramble, in the mountaineering grading system. Most walkers who have any experience of scrambling find it manageable.

A few honest notes.

The slab is slightly tilted. It is often wet at the top from spray. At high tide with a swell, the spray is constant.

Falling off the Bad Step is not hypothetical. In the last two or three years there have been recorded incidents of walkers going into the sea. One recent report from the Walk Highlands forum community referred to a lady who had fallen into the water a week before a walker posted about managing the Step easily on their attempt. Mountain rescue has taken people off this bit of coast more than once. It is not the Cuillin ridge by any means, but it is not a beach walk either. Almost everyone passes this section without a hitch, but you do need to be careful.

Who should not attempt the Bad Step: walkers without any scrambling experience, walkers with knee or hip problems that would stop them reaching high, walkers carrying small children, walkers without stiff boots, walkers in high wind or in heavy rain or in the last hour of daylight. If you are reading this and the Bad Step is sounding like a gamble, the boat option is the better answer.

Sligachan route, in short

The Sligachan walk is looking for a long hill walk in without any scrambling. The mileage is about nine miles each way, so eighteen return, but the ground is slow and boggy in long stretches. Expect five to six hours out and the same back, plus time at the loch, which makes for a full day, so start early. The walk is over open country with the Cuillin ridge on your right and Blà Bheinn on your left. You are alone on it for hours at a stretch and on most days you will see more deer than walkers.

Practical: carry food for a full day, water, a map and a compass, a whistle, and a charged phone. No signal in the middle third of the route. River crossings at Harta Corrie and over the Allt a’ Choire Riabhaich can be impassable after rain. Plan the walk for a settled three-day forecast, not a bright morning after a wet night.

The loch itself, when you get there

A glacial loch sitting in a 60-million-year-old lava chamber exposed by the last ice age, surrounded on three sides by the main Cuillin peaks. The river from the loch drops down a series of black slabs into Loch Scavaig at the sea. You can walk round the south side of the loch on a path that is obvious most of the way, boggy in others. The full loch circumnavigation is around five miles and takes two and a half hours.

There is no hut, no café, no loo. You take everything in, you take everything out.

What to pack for a full walk-in

Boots, stiffer than you think you need. A water proof outer layer. Softshell or fleece mid-layer in summer, something warmer in shoulder seasons. Waterproof trousers. Map (OS Explorer 411, Cuillin Hills) and compass. A GPS watch is a nice-to-have, not a substitute for the map. Head torch. Whistle. First-aid kit. Food for the length of day you planned plus an extra meal. Twice as much water as you think you’ll need, 3 litres of water minimum.

A phone, with offline maps downloaded before you start (again not a substitute for real map). No reliable signal on any of these routes.

Poles are useful for the Elgol coast path and almost essential on the Sligachan route in wet weather.

Who should just take the boat

If any of the following: you are not a scrambler, you are uncertain on your feet/knees, you have a fear of exposure, you have young children with you, you have not walked ten miles in a day, you are on a tight forecast window. The boat from Elgol is 30 minutes each way and you get ninety minutes to two hours at the loch. You will see the same place. You will not have ten hours of walking for it. The walks are spectacular, but not essential.

After the walk

Coruisk House is the third building on the right as you come into Elgol. Four rooms in the main house, two thatched cottages next door, and a four-course dinner at seven, with a hot bath first if you want one. The langoustines on the menu most nights are creel-caught in the same Loch Scavaig water you walked above.

Book a room, read about An Nead (dogs welcome in the cottage). Phone +44 (0)1471 866 330. Email info@coruiskhouse.com.