Category Archives: Stravaiging

Covid dreams 19: The carefree days

Posted on May 19, 2020 by cairngormwanderer

‘Lithgae’ Jim Wright is caught mid-leap. A hill from the daft days. A hill started by walking away and sneaking round the back. A hill climbed by hiding from the views until the last. If you want to climb Beinn … Continue reading →

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Covid Dreams 18: Traverse of the Gods

Posted on May 17, 2020 by cairngormwanderer

It’s one of the most magnificent panoramas and one of the finest walks in Scotland, from Cairn Toul round to Braeriach.  Six kilometres of almost continuous cliff runs between the two summits, broken by only a handful of routes where … Continue reading →

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Covid Dreams 17: Where sky and mountains meet

Posted on May 12, 2020 by cairngormwanderer

What jumps out first is the cloud-dappled sky… until you realise there’s land where there could be none and there’s a momentary sense of dislocation until you realise it’s not sky, nor even the reflection of clouds, but a frozen … Continue reading →

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Covid Dreams 15: Glory and madness

Posted on May 9, 2020 by cairngormwanderer

It’s hardly seasonal but what the heck. This must be close on 30 years ago but I remember still how blown away we were by the sheer, in your face glory of it all. I don’t recall why we weren’t … Continue reading →

Posted in Misadventures, Stravaiging, Topography | Tagged | 6 Comments

Covid Dreams 14: Light in Glen Derry

Posted on May 6, 2020 by cairngormwanderer

I love the light in this photograph: the clarity of the air, the glow of the sunlit pines; in the distance, the cloud thinning and lifting to reveal a first dusting of snow on the tops, the sun catching the … Continue reading →

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Covid Dreams 13: Tree on a treeless hill

Posted on May 5, 2020 by cairngormwanderer

This ‘tree’ caught me by surprise one day as I was climbing from Meall Tionaill to Geal Charn, in the hills between the Bynack Burn and Glen Ey. The hillsides and corries may be shorn of trees by the deer, … Continue reading →

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Covid Dreams 10: A sense of scale

Posted on May 1, 2020 by cairngormwanderer

As ever, in the Cairngorms, where the glens splitting the great plateaux can become almost invisible, it’s the sense of space and of scale that overwhelms. This was the day I did the five four-thousand feet mountains of the Cairngorms. … Continue reading →

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Covid dreams 4: Perfect day

Posted on April 24, 2020 by cairngormwanderer

There’s something so relaxed and relaxing about this photo of Neil Findlay and Alfie descending from Sgor Dubh to Luibeg Cottage. June sunshine dominates, with the occasional cloud-shadow drifting across the hillsides but to wind to speak of. As I … Continue reading →

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Covid dreams 3: Cold winter

Posted on April 23, 2020 by cairngormwanderer

These images speak of the harshness and violence of winter in the Cairngorms. And of the beauty. The weak sunlight flaring through a gap in the wind-torn clouds to light a ridgeline almost scoured of that dry, cold snow that … Continue reading →

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Into the Mountain: Garbh Choire Mor

Posted on April 4, 2020 by cairngormwanderer

  This article originally appeared in the excellent anthology ‘Shared Stories: A Year in the Cairngorms’, edited by Anna Fleming and Merryn Glover.   A dished out hollow of snow, sharp, granite scree rising steeply before me, disappearing into a … Continue reading →

Posted in Stravaiging, Topography | Tagged , | 4 Comments