A few months ago I had a chance to visit Scotland for a conference on Alpine Meteorology. I've always wanted to visit Scotland, so perhaps it's a case of love before first sight, but WOW! What an amazing landscape. Aside from the American West I've never felt a landscape move me in this manner. There are very few trees, at least on the hills, and the endless views and climbs rolled out of before me for miles on end. I was in Aviemore, outside of the Cairngorm National Park for the better part of a week, and managed a run up the Craigelachie's, up Geal-Charn-Mor, and finally up Cairngorm itself (webcam). Due to weather related issues I did not manage Ben Macdui (Scotland's 2nd highest peak). I didn't mind. The weather was terrible/average. That is, the blowing snow at 40+ mph did not seem out of the ordinary at all to the rangers at the station. The people were so friendly, and the country felt comfortably rough around the edge.
I stopped by the ranger station on the way up the summit to Cairngorm and asked the rangers about some natural features on the topo map.
'Ummm, this one, what exactly is that?'.
'Oh cuuhhhreeeaaag, thats a bunch of rocks.'
'Oh really, because my name is Craig'.
'What? Youre name is what?'.
'Craig'. 'No it's Cuhhhreeeaagggg'.
Point of the story is that, at the ripe age of 33, I finally learned the proper pronunciation of my first name .... In Gaelic it's spelled differently, with an exotic and exciting combinaton of vowels! Long story short, I've almost never seen a landscape that moved me as much. The landscape seems so infused with the culture. It's amazing and I cant wait to return ... hopefully on a sunny day.
Cairngorm from the Windy Ridge trail
Really nice rockwork
A beatiful ribbon of trail descending Cairngorm towards Glenmore
Descending towards Glenmore from Cairngorm
Looking back at Cairngorm from Aviemore. The only blue sky I saw for a week.
Posts
No comments:
Post a Comment