Nearing the end of my Scotland trip I paid a visit to the Cairngorm National Park. I cannot express in words the beauty of Loch Morlich. Even these awesome photos (if I do say so myself) do justice to this amazingly gorgeous landscape. With the highest beach in the UK surrounded by forests with a backdrop of some of our nations tallest mountains. It is, simply, spectacular!
The Route
Glenmore Forest
As much as I love climbing up mountains I very much enjoy trekking through forest paths. This path that lead through the Glenmore Forest was no exception. The slim trodden trail might have been a little sketchy on places.
An Lochan Uaine / The Green Loch
I kind of side tracked past this loch.Iif only I had known just how beautiful it was sat in the valley between the mountains. Still I had a target in mind to reach the mountain, first I had a bothie to visit though.
Ryvoan Bothie
I didn’t do a night in a bothie like I had hoped on my Scotland tour, although I did visit a couple. I also look forward to making the most of the Bothie Associations locations on my next trip to Scotland.
I’ve included the little video below to show my little tour of the Ryvoan Bothie. This was filmed after borrowing the shovel for a little relief. Hopefully the almost painful sound of my aggressive gum chewing isn’t too much…
Before I left the bothie I did do my little bit for the next occupant. Chopping some firewood ready for them. I hope that this was a pleasant surprise for the weary traveller.
Meall a’Bhuachaille
The cairn and surrounding stone shelter was a great space for a break spot. Me and my little green friend took in the views of the simply awe inspiring mountains that surrounded us.
On another day I would try and find the energy to take on the mountains in the Cairngorm range.
Pine Marten Bar
To end my morning hike, I dropped into the Pine Marten Bar which sits beside Loch Morlich, this was a big theme for my stay in the Cairngorms. They serve some amazing food and they have an amazing range of local craft beers that are just beautiful. On top of that their bar staff are amazing friendly, they also really tried to help me pronounce some of the local mountains correctly. Although I will admit, I have a major soft for a girl with a Scottish accent so I may have asked for the pronunciation a few times more than I should.
I’ll be back
I didn’t do an awful lot of hiking on this trip to the Cairngorms, it was the last stop of a 16 day tour of Scotland which had covered almost 100 miles of hiking and almost 1000 miles of driving. I’ll be honest I was feeling a little knackered. I will definitely return to the Cairngorms and to the Glenmore Campsite to take on the National Parks’ namesake mountain along with Ben Macdui.
There is also a little case of a few royal pyramids on the opposite side of the park which I want to explore…