sharedstoriescairngorms

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A Year in the Cairngorms in Five Words

A Year in the Cairngorms in Five Words

In February I invited you to come with me on a journey into the Cairngorms. Thank you for your company! 2019 has certainly been a significant year: being Writer in Residence for the Cairngorms National Park has been my dream job and I feel incredibly fortunate to have had the opportunity.

It’s hard to sum up the experience, but I had five minutes to do just that at our celebration eventlast…

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Anthology Launch & Celebration

Anthology Launch & Celebration

Well that’s a wrap! On the 21st of November we raised our glasses and cheers in a celebration event to mark the end of the Shared Stories: A Year in the Cairngorms project and to launch the anthology of writing that was gathered across the year. Wonderfully, some people travelled from as far as Falkirk, Perth, Aberdeen and even Ayrshire to swell the 70-strong crowd at The Pagoda in Grantown.

As…

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What do you hear?

by Amy-Louise Hutchinson

Tweeting birds high up in the Scots pines, Tapping quickly, Shooting past to catch that beastie. Wood Ants upon the floor scuttling along for their food to give their Queen, Crackling fire, Boiling water, Time for a nice hot cuppa, Sitting here listening to what I can hear every other Friday under the watchful eye of the awesome rangers, Looking back at the footage from the camera traps, Young deer, A fox cub and a badger appear on the screen. Stop and listen what can you hear.

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Rinasluick

by Douglas Johnston

There are no ghosts at Rinasluick only deer grazing by the rubble from the granite walls.

Piping voices, echo in shrill delight filtered through archival detritus.

A small croft house, one story in height, slated and in good repair. Property of Colonel Farquharson of Invercauld.

Attested by the Revd's Middleton, Campbell & Smith. Of higher authority it seems than those who bide.

There were no deer at the rigs of Rinasluick when bairns ran the boundaries there.

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In High Trees

by Jen Cooper

Every time, you say, these high trees exceed your expectations. Your eye drawn up, and up again, to crescent goldcrest nests. We wait in the quiet moments, feel the air get light before their intermittent bursting out from cover to dart between trees in threes and fours – their sheer lightness – landing on pines whose bark shards dwarf kinglet bird, so plain except that yellow orange crest.

#sharedstories ayearinthecairngorms poetry

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Golden Eagle

Poem by Gillian Shearer

Golden Eagle Photo: Charlie Phillips https://www.charliephillipsimages.co.uk/

A red sun splays across the rise where siskin and lapwing soar,

heather in its purple cloak bows gently in the gloam, stippling the air with its sweet perfume,

across the glen our Lady’s Mantle tilts softly towards the light, as higher and higher, we roam.

There, amidst the reddening sun, we gather our thoughts – listen as the birlin wind ruffles the air,

somewhere, a lonely eagle glides, exciting the moor with its clarion cry, deathly, majestic, a spinning gyre – comes tumbling towards the earth.

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To Walk Alone

by Val Hamilton

Walking alone in the hills is an indulgence. It is a selfish pursuit: it allows you to relax into your surroundings, appreciating the sharpness of the air in your lungs and on your face; smelling the pine, the heather, the damp earth, the snow; hearing your footsteps pounding against the forest track, pat-putting up the hill path, squeaking in the snow as you move at your own pace; noticing the elusive green juniper berries, the lichen-covered rock which twitches and turns into a ptarmigan, the strange mini-forests of alpine club-moss.  

There is the luxury of thinking of no-one but yourself and of nothing but the world around you. All decisions are your own: it is so easy when walking with others, especially those fitter than you, to plod behind, barely aware of the route, either in macro terms of where to turn off a path, or on the micro scale of where to put your feet crossing a boulder field or working out which innocuous-looking grass patch conceals a soggy bog.

Walking alone on the Cairngorm plateaus has particular significance, as the consequences of making a mistake can be so severe. This adds to the experience as you keep an eye on any clouds piling in from the west and try to identify and register the slightest landmark so always aiming to know where you are. And if the visibility does deteriorate, you have the test of walking on a bearing, counting your paces, checking your timings. Where’s the fun in using a GPS? You have to concentrate: it is no use knowing you have to walk for ten minutes if you don’t remember what time you started.

In theory, walking alone should give you precious thinking time and sometimes that happens on an easy path, although even then you must be ready to switch your awareness back on or you can find yourself “misplaced”. But often your head needs to be filled with the practicalities of the day and this in itself clears your cluttered mind of concerns and problems. Solo hill walkers have “lived in the moment” long before it became a trendy lifestyle mantra.

Although solitary walking has a strong anti-social element, there is pleasure to be found in chance encounters: the hill runner met on Creag an Leth-Choin with tales of summer snow-patch skiing; the older woman making steady progress up the Lairig Ghru path who told me she always left her family a note of her route so that if she didn’t return, they would know where to look for her bleached bones; the Frenchman who had run up to the summit of Cairngorm from the Glenmore campsite, stripping off his t-shirt to use it as a towel, while I approached dressed in fleece, cagoule and gloves and preparing to put on a hat; the three monosyllabic men on Bynack More, perhaps unhappy about being overtaken by a woman of a certain age. 

Walking with friends and family of course has its own pleasures but the sense of achievement from pushing your limits unaccompanied is incomparable. Solitude is so different from loneliness.  The sense of space, freedom and potential experienced alone on the high tops of the Cairngorms is one of the greatest privileges life can provide.

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Earth’s Cry

 by EA Carey

Bleak, dark, eerie and somehow foreboding, Images and echoes of ghosts seem to haunt from the past. Little to survive on, they left, or were forced out. Scenically beautiful, spectacular and truly majestic. In Winter snow capped mountains, sodden, peaty, boggy moorland lies beneath. Rugged, wild and free, a challenging landscape. In Summer, mirror images of the hills reflecting perfectly onto small black lochs, Breathtakingly stunning - the sun trying hard to brighten the sombre, greyness of the hills.

Dotted along the Cairngorm National Park, the occasional bed and breakfast and hotel, Catering for tired, foot-weary walkers and hikers. Here and there ruins of crumbling, derelict cottages and bothies, All lying abandoned, their occupants long gone. Cascading white waterfalls, rainbows forming, from the raw force of Nature, Like the Grey Mare’s tails in the Borders, gouging out prehistoric rocks, Tumbling ever downwards to meandering streams, where relentless flowing water, Forges carpets of stone pearls, from rocks, that could resist no more.

Fishermen stand, casting their lines, on the River Spey’s beautiful banks Some stealthily and cannily wade through its crystal clear, cool waters, The seductive allure of this river attracts keen anglers from the far corners of the earth, Each one being tantalised by the slippery, elusive salmon playing hide and seek! Once caught, the bragging and tall tales will survive many a conversation in many different languages. The salmon numbers lowering year on year, as each strives to leap up the manmade ladder at Pitlochry To reach their final destination The safety and cocoon of their natal home.

Nature’s life cycle, battling against extremely high odds and environmental issues, Birth, death, to the earth all life returns, from whence it all comes. Natural law, Natural rhythm, peace, balance and harmony. The generations continue, the salmon spawn, then die. Leaving behind their essential life giving nutrients. In all its forms, Mother Nature tries to guide and show us this beautiful life flow. We need to play our part now, to conserve and preserve these special areas of our countryside and all its flora and fauna As a legacy for future generations to find inner contentment, to roam wild and be free.

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Wonder of Wonders

Last week I described my first outing with the Health Walk Group in Glen Tanar. As Writer in Residence for the Cairngorms National Park, I’ve had the pleasure of working with many kinds of people of all ages right across this vast and varied landscape. Some of them have eagerly signed up to attend a writing workshop; others, like school classes, are just lumbered with me. (Though with sometimes s…

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Home

by Emma Atkinson

Where I perch peacefully behind my window herbs, watching droopy birches hang tired. Heavy with summer, they surrender to the push and sway of the wind. Behind them, thick, dark trains of cloud bulldoze across blue mountains, flattening them to my view, obscuring their lumpy heights.

Where I race along the sunning plateau to the feathery drum of a snow bunting’s wings and the rush and release of the sighing brown streams below. Rosy granite glistens and blushes as I run my hand over its rough, round body. And near-by, squatting little ptarmigan giggle at my flirtation.

Where I plod through tall, still pines, staring at me in royal green, with resin bark smirks. On the forest floor, a soft duvet of blooming, scented heather swaddles magician spiders who hold rusty needles in their sticky silk webs. The needles hang on the invisible threads, paused in time, until the sun slips through the trees and gives their magic away in glittering silver dew.

Home. The Cairngorms.

Where raging white winter melts into hopeful sharp springs and where warm summers dance soft into burning bright Autumn.

Where the land itself paints a shadowy rainbow of blues, browns, purples and greens. And where every blink is a moving canvas, the oils of nature oozing in the shapes, sounds, smells and colours of Home.

#SharedStories AYearintheCairngorms

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Rowan

by Antonia Kearton

I went out.

I went out walking, I walked the hours I reached the rock, scrambling, sky-reaching I walked the sky, the searching sky I swam the forest, the ferny depths Pines blue and green, tall straight and standing. In the blue greenness Stags stand roaring, roar running, By bracken bent breaking, brightening With autumn’s yellow yellowing.

I see you -

Right red upright, curly-toed, bold berried, marching leaves, rank on rank climbing upward, pioneer Cluster-trunk, berry-clump cliff-climbing, witch-warning, warn-witching, bold-berried.

You were what I found

I swim home through the evening, darkening, back to the start There are Rowans by my door.

https://www.antoniakearton.co.uk/

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Having Words with the Non-Writers

Though the Glen Tanar Health Walk group love where they walk and were very happy to have me join them, it was made clear that they did not want to do any writing.

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An acrostic poem about capercaillie by a young writer at the Cairngorms Nature Big Weekend.

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Mither Dee

by Mary Munro

Hotterin an oozin fae the Wells o’ Dee, The river winds lang on her wey tae the Sea. Ower Braeriach’s grim cliff, she loups tae the Glen, Neath craggy, auld faces o’ harsh mountain bens.

Bubblin an chatterin in grey-granite rills, Swalled wi the peat-burns fae shelterin hills. Doon at the Linn, roarin thro’ the scoored gorge, Then spreadin her fingers afore bonny Mar Lodge.

She hoves doon the Valley fae Braemar tae the Sea, Past auld Scots pines an bonny, green lea. Thro’ low-hingin laricks an fir-scented tang, She gaithers her bairns, growin wider an strang.

The hert o’ the Valley, aye lo’ed by her ain, The Dee cuts the land, like a life-bringin vein. Fyles, roarin in spate or flowin sae calm, The soon o’ her waaters aye like a balm.

The fowk o’ the Glen are bit here for a fyle, Bit eternal, auld Dee flows on mile upon mile, Teemin her bounty intae the muckle saat Sea, Like a Mither, aye faithful, this bonny-bit Dee.

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Hope for the Cairngorms

Hope for the Cairngorms

What is your hope for the Cairngorms? It’s a question I put to the audience at a talk I gave last month in Inverness. I was lucky enough to be on the programme of Ness Book Fest, a vibrant and fast-growing literature festival held every October in the Highland capital. Running since 2016, the festival brings together well known and grass-roots writers of all genres in 4 days of free events across…

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Beinn Bhrotain – An autumnal walk into last winter

by Iain Cameron

I had long lost count of the trips I’d made into the hills that year. Twenty? Thirty? Who knows.       Spring 2015’s obdurate refusal to pass on the seasonal baton had left the high peaks and passes of the Cairngorms looking unusually snowy in early summer. The frightful cliffs that rise vertiginously from many of Braeriach’s corries had upon them a full winter jacket, yet it was now June. At the same time, the pregnant-like summit bump of Ben Macdui rose white and unblemished above everything else within sight.       Summer passed, though. Much of the snow melted, of course, but, still, relics of winter and spring remained across Am Monadh Ruadh into September and even October. It was no exaggeration to say that the scene was a facsimile of one from many autumns past. John Taylor, king James VI’s Water Poet, who journeyed to Braemar in 1610, would have recognised it:       There I saw Mount Ben Avon, with a furred mist upon his snowy head instead of a nightcap: (for you must understand, that the oldest man alive never saw but the snow was on the top of [many] of those hills, both in summer, as well as in winter.)       In a normal year – so far as any year in these parishes can be thus described – counting the number of patches of snow that endure to the 10th month of the year would be an exercise able to be conducted over the course of a weekend. 2015 was not such a year.       For some time leading up to the start of October my Saturdays and Sundays, as well as a good chunk of my annual leave entitlement from work, was given over to what sometimes felt like a never-ending circle of repeat visits to the inaccessible nooks and crannies of Scotland’s highest tops, gathering data for the annual snow patch paper I co-authored for the Royal Meteorological Society.       The 24th of October saw one such visit. That day’s target was the immense bulk of Beinn Bhrotain – the hill of the mastiff. Like so many of its Cairngorms’ brethren it has a whale-like appearance from distance. Traverse around its northern flank, however, and the rolling countenance is brutally sliced open by the shattered and splintered granite cliffs above Glen Geusachan. For me, no lover of heights or steep cliffs, my path was to be more benign.

      Cycling from the spate-engorged Linn o’ Dee at daybreak I made for White Bridge. Though progress on two wheels would have been easier on the east side of the infant River Dee, its fording would have been impossible, given the quantity of rain that was now trying solemnly to get back to the sea whence it emanated. Wiser counsel suggested the western approach, crossing White Bridge over the Geldie – which swells the Dee to double its size – and on towards the foot of the mastiff hill.       Arriving at White Bridge I paused briefly and marked the clouds that were lifting. The mature orange and browns of the now-dormant autumn vegetation were in stark contrast to the gleaming white of Ben Macdui and Braeriach, whose top 500 ft were resplendent in a castor sugar-covering of fresh snow. It was then, also, that I caught my first glimpse of Bhrotain’s white spot. It was exactly where reported: sitting in the upper reaches of Coire an-t Sneachda – the corrie of the snow. The Gaels were, apparently, noting long-lasting snow locations hundreds of years ago.       Onwards.       But, alas, not for long. The normally placid Allt Iarnaidh, which drains but a small area of the southern slopes of Beinn Bhrotain, was a seething, foaming torrent of angry water. Luckily, just upstream, its course was constricted by a narrowing of the gully, and a simple hop over with the bike was sufficient to overcome what would have otherwise been an insuperable barrier.       Ten minutes or so later I was at the hardly-discernible start of the path which led up the course of the Allt Garbh. This handsome brook reached upwards right into the heart of the hill, emanating directly from the snowy corrie that I was aiming at. For the next three miles or so it would be my noisy but unwavering companion.       The terrain was in no hurry to lend me height. A slow and steady upwards march through thick, tussocky grass and heather necessitated close proximity to the chatty burn, which cascaded over virgin granite outcrops, stripping anything unlucky enough to grow within its cold reach.       Eventually, some two hours after parking the bike, I reached the corrie. Last year’s patch of snow sat in a large hollow just below the horizon’s edge. Now, on easier terrain, I made for it, noticing a large inverted ‘V’ carved in its southern edge. I knew immediately what this meant: a tunnel.       But this was surely no ordinary tunnel. It was one that had been months in the making. Water and wind had carved it out during the short summer and autumn. I hurried towards it.       Upon reaching the opening I peered in excitedly. Seldom had I seen anything like it in Scotland. I crouched, motionless, barely able to take in what was in front of me. A cold wind, far cooler than the ambient air temperature, passed down through the tunnel and across my face. Coldness that was laid down some 11 months previously was being liberated even now.

      Mighty pillars of white snow supported this edifice on either side of the rivulet that issued from the tunnel mouth. Above these columns sat an arch of translucent blues and whites, caused by thinning snow being pierced by the daylight. The mosses of luminous green and the pink granite blocks added to the kaleidoscope of colours.

      I drank it all in, unsure if I would ever come to this location again and witness such a spectacle. Four years on, with Scotland’s semi-perennial snow patches now firmly in retreat, my doubts were depressingly well founded.

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Seasons on the Mountain

by Kerry Dexter

In shadow up the mountain snow lies late in spring

In summer’s turn of season heather colours rise; daylight lingers then

With autumn’s breath a skein of geese unravels against greying sky

Silver brush of snowfall paints winter up the mountain Seasons turn again

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