Scotland’s 10th highest mountain, Ben Lawers, towers above Scotland’s 6th largest loch and lies at the heart of the Ben Lawers National Nature Reserve. The glaciers which scoured out the bed of Loch Tay dug so deeply that at one point the bed of the loch lies 160 feet (50m) below sea level. Glaciers also carved Scotland’s longest glen, the beautiful but lonely 30-mile long Glen Lyon.
Evidence of human activity in the region goes back 9,000 years to a Middle Stone Age hunters’ encampment on the slopes below Ben Lawers. Loch Tay itself contains the remains of 18 Iron Age lake dwellings (crannogs), recreated on the loch today at the Scottish Crannog Centre. The present day population lives largely in Killin, at the west end of the loch and also in Kenmore at the east end, where Taymouth Castle, former seat of the Earls of Breadalbane, is located.
