The Saddle

About The Saddle

The Saddle carries an English name unusually for a Highland mountain: it was originally An Diollaid in Gaelic, but common use of the translation displaced it. The name describes the summit ridge as it appears from Glen Shiel, twin tops with a dip between them.

Seen from the site of the Battle of Glen Shiel, the mountain and neighbouring Faochag form one of the best-known views in the Highlands. It stands on the old Inverness-shire and Ross and Cromarty boundary within the Highland council area, and the traverse of the Forcan Ridge, in summer or winter, ranks among the classic Scottish mountain expeditions.

Background written from facts in the Wikipedia article on The Saddle (CC BY-SA 4.0). Heights, prominence and grid references come from the Database of British & Irish Hills, not from Wikipedia.

Access rights here

General position for Scotland — local byelaws, seasonal restrictions and closures can override it. Full details: access rights in Scotland ·check another location.

Daylight at this summit today

Sunrise

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Sunset

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Daylight

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Civil twilight ends

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Computed astronomically for 57.162, -5.415. Plan your finish with the daylight safety planner.

Finding the summit

The recorded summit point is small cairn. On broad or flat summits the obvious cairn is not always the true high point.

Survey method

Leica RX1250

Record revised

04-Oct-14

Drop measured from

NG952111 · 677 m

Classification history: Marilyn relocated from hill 686 in Sep 2014. See Database Notes..

Survey notes are field observations recorded in the Database of British & Irish Hills (v18.3, CC BY 4.0) by the hill-surveying community.

Long-distance paths past this hill

One waymarked long-distance route runs within 2.5 km of the summit — useful if you are linking this hill into a longer walk, or want a made path for the approach.

Route lines © OpenStreetMap contributors (ODbL); distance from the summit computed by OpenFell.

Get food nearby

3 places to eat or drink within 10 km of the summit, rated under the Food Hygiene Rating Scheme (Scotland runs its own Food Hygiene Information Scheme, a pass/fail equivalent).

Classifications and ratings are the local authority's own and can be coarse — this is a lead, not a guarantee of opening hours or that food is served to non-residents. Follow a name through to the official rating page to check, and confirm before you rely on it.

Food hygiene data from the Food Standards Agency and Food Standards Scotland (Open Government Licence v3.0). Distances and directions computed by OpenFell from the summit.

The The Saddle group

3 other listed summits sit in the same prominence group, with The Saddle as the independent hill at its head.

Grouping is by prominence alone: a summit belongs to the nearest higher Marilyn it connects to without a deeper intervening col. Over a large massif that can gather hills no one would walk in a single day, and which few would describe as parts of the same mountain — it is a measure of independence, not a suggested route.

Nearest listed peaks