Rannoch Moor

The Black Mount, seen over the wild landscape

Rannoch Moor / Dismal Downs portrayed by Don Rosa

Rannoch Moor (Scottish Gaelic: Mòinteach Raineach/Raithneach) is a large expanse of around 50 square miles (130 km²) of boggy moorland to the west of Loch Rannoch, in Perth and Kinross and Lochaber, Highland, partly northern Argyll and Bute, Scotland. Rannoch Moor is designated a National Heritage site.

It is notable for its wildlife, particularly famous for the sole British location for the Rannoch-rush, named after the moor. It was also frequently visited by Horace Donisthorpe, who collected many unusual species of ants on the moor and surrounding hilly ground. Today it is still one of the few remaining habitats for Formica exsecta, the "narrow-headed ant", although recent surveys have failed to produce any sign of Formica pratensis, which Donisthorpe recorded in the area in the early part of the 20th century.

Peat deposits pose major difficulties to builders of roads and railways. When the West Highland Line was built across Rannoch Moor, its builders had to float the tracks on a mattress of tree roots, brushwood and thousands of tons of earth and ashes.

The A82 road crosses through Rannoch Moor on its way to Glen Coe and Fort William.

Geography

This expanse was at the heart of the last significant icefield in the UK during the Loch Lomond Stadial at the end of the last ice age. Once the great mass of ice had melted, the subsequent unburdening of the Earth's crust resulted in a continuing rise in the land which is estimated to be of the order of 2–3 mm per year.

In fiction

"Kidnapped" by Robert Louis Stevenson.

According to Don Rosa, Castle McDuck, the ancestral home of Scrooge McDuck's family, the Clan McDuck is located in Dismal Downs somewhere on Rannoch Moor.

In DC Comics' Swamp Thing Rannoch Moor was the site of MacCobb castle, home of the werewolf Ian MacCobb.

In the 1996 film Trainspotting, Tommy and the gang get off an Intercity train to "get some fresh air" on a hike at Corrour railway station, which is located on Rannoch Moor.

In The System of the World, by Neal Stephenson, Rufus MacIan says "On the Muir of Rannoch, they grow braw, or they grow na at all".

See also

• List of places in Perth and Kinross
• List of places in Argyll and Bute
• List of places in Highland
• List of places in Aberdeenshire
• List of places in Moray