Glen Tarken, St Fillans

Enjoy this 15.9-km circular trail with views across Loch Earn Generally considered a moderately challenging route, it takes an average of 4 h 34 min to complete. It is unlikely that we will encounter many other people while exploring.

Glen Tarken boasts a hidden – and record-breaking – history. Beneath the valley’s wooded lower slopes and hilly moorland high ground, there lurks a secret subterranean world. the road leading up into the glen passes St Fillans Power Station, although only the portal of the entrance tunnel is visible. Behind it, the hydro-electric turbine hall is secreted within a rocky cavern cut into the hill.
It takes its water from a pipeline running through Glen Tarken and from a reservoir in Glen Lednock, located four miles away over the hills to the north and connected to the power station by a network of tunnels.
Constructed by the celebrated ‘Tunnel Tigers’, who laboured on Scotland’s hydro-electric schemes during the mid-20th Century, they set a world record for rock digging here 65 years ago, chiselling out a 557-foot section in just seven days.
Water continues to course through this tunnel and our route through Glen Tarken would follow an excellent track laid down to service the scheme’s various tunnels, shafts and intakes.
The walk ends passing past several ruins and barely habitable cottages and passing through Glen Tarken Woods back down to the loch side and a refreshment stop at the Four Seasons Hotel.