47 Ronin|Hill of the Red Fox — the quietest location the film ever used

Sgùrr a' Mhadaidh Ruaidh means the peak of the red dog, or the red fox, and it stands above Loch Cuithir on the eastern flank of the Trotternish ridge. Almost nobody goes. The track in leaves the Lealt road, runs for two miles across moorland scarred by the old diatomite workings, and stops at a black lochan with the crags reflected in it. On a windless morning the reflection is so clean it reads as a second mountain.

This was among the Skye locations used when 47 Ronin returned to Scotland for its 2012 reshoots. The production needed empty distance — riders crossing a wintering country — and this corner of Trotternish has more of it than anywhere on the island that a road reaches. Whatever was shot here was later buried under digital snowfields and invented peaks, so you will not match a frame. That is rather the point of coming.

Bring boots. The diatomite tramway that once carried mineral down to the coast has left the path boggy in stretches, and there is no shelter between the road and the loch. There is also no car park, no sign, no visitor centre, and usually no other person. Sit on the shore for ten minutes and the only sounds are water and, if you are lucky, a raven working the crag above you.

Photograph via Wikimedia Commons, freely licensed: "Sgurr a Mhadaidh Ruaidh - geograph.org.uk - 92680.jpg" (Geograph Britain and Ireland, CC BY-SA 2.0).