A dark loch in a steep glen below Lochnagar on the Balmoral estate, with Queen Victoria's old retreat of Glas-allt-Shiel at its head
Say it “Mick”. Loch Muick fills the floor of a steep-sided glen in the Deeside and Lochnagar hills, part of the Cairngorms, on the royal Balmoral estate. The cliff-backed mountain of Lochnagar rises to the north-west, and a track runs right round the loch, a walk of roughly eight miles that most people do as a day out from the car park at the far end of Glen Muick. At the head of the loch stands Glas-allt-Shiel, a lodge Queen Victoria had built as a private retreat after Prince Albert died; you pass it on the circuit, but it is not open to visit. This is a walkers’ and stalkers’ loch rather than a tourist one, quiet and often wild.
