Balmy under the stormy
The long north ridge of Carn Mor Dearg Out there, it's been a stunning summer so far, apparently, but spare time has been scarce these past few months. Time to crawl out from under a blanket of Edinburgh haar. The plan was a trip to some of the remoter, obscurer bothies and mountains of Assynt, and so it remained until Aviemore. Having lunch in a cafe, my eye caught the weather forecast on the screen high on the wall. The north and west of the country were invisible under an angry yellow and purple rash of thunderstorms. Weather warnings were in place. Time to reassess... Lower Glen Feshie was humid and dusty when I parked up near the Achlean road-end. The storms would be hitting the Cairngorms too but hopefully a little later tomorrow than out west. The glen was quiet and still, even the birdsong was muted under the blanket of heat. Dark green fritillaries weaved and fluttered over the heather. Humans were in short supply today; the deep green calm of the Caledonian pine woods wel...