Our first featured blog post from the TGO Blogger Network is a look back at 50 years enjoying the Cairngorm mountains
Neil Reid’s blog Cairngorm Wanderer is a fantastic resource for facts, stories and unusual information about Britain’s sub-arctic plateau. In his latest post, he tells the story of how he discovered the hills – from that first sip of sweet mountain water through to ‘ill-equipped and ill-educated’ winter gully climbs in the Northern Corries; from family life to a new-found appreciation for bothies (especially keeping them in good working order).
Read the full post here.
It was an inauspicious start: 1967, nine years old and chasing my brother through the heather. Suddenly I was doing a Wiley E Coyote impression, feet windmilling through the air as I fell into a gravel quarry at the side of the track up Glen Dee. There was scraped skin, a modicum of blood and bruising and plenty of tears, prompted by shock as much as pain.
But what swung it that day was the water. After the tears had subsided and we’d walked a little further we came across a stream. Not too big, but running clear down off the hill and culverted under the track to continue its way down to the Dee. A cup was produced, water was scooped from the burn and ritually tasted by my father and his pal. A little peaty, apparently, but potable. We would be able to drink it.
Image © Neil Reid
