Evening Colours, Monadliath mountains There was a beautiful evening atmosphere with light haze turning the sky completely peachy, as the sun set over the Monadliath Mountains. I’m just loving the colour. “The quality of emotional knowing has a finer integration with our spirit than anything that comes from barren intellectual processes. This point of view […]
Ice baubles on moss Its been an amazing week of high-pressure weather, with blue skies nearly every day. Some days with warm sun tempting us to think that its spring, other days with a biting wind and deep frost… There isn’t a great deal of snow on the slopes, but the high plateau looks plastered, […]
Wing-marks in snow, Monadhliath Mountains An unusual image this week – for several reasons. We don’t often see things like this in the Scottish mountains, as it is so rarely settled enough from one day to the next. Normally there is constant snow blowing, obscuring your own tracks within minutes. On this day there had […]
Winter Storm clouds over Geal-Charn-Mor, the Monadhliath Mountains Taken a few years ago on a ski trip across the Monadhliath. We started out with blue skies and perfect conditions, but the weather was rapidly coming in and by the time we were up in the hills it was getting quite dramatic. You can see the […]
Solitary Pine, Monadliath mountains, near Aviemore An old gnarled pine, an outlier above the natural tree-line, on the moorland of the Monadliath mountains. I love these ‘natural bonsai’ pines, shaped by the ferocious weather conditions. As ever, adverse conditions are character-forming, our suffering can become beauty when viewed from a different perspective… “It’s like you […]
Evening light across the Monadliath mountains, from Tullochgrue, Aviemore I love the ‘distant hazy ridges’ effect here, looking over the early spring woods, from Tullochgrue hill, as the sun sinks behind the Monadliath. On days like this I am constantly reminded to be grateful for the wonderful country we live in, in fact for the […]
A spring snowstorm sweeps across the forest, Monadliath mountains I love the grainy texture in this from the snow clouds, as they swept in across the forest, and the misty effect disappearing into the distance. It doesn’t look very springlike, I admit, but that is what this week has been all about – lovely warm […]
Snowy pines at sunset Its been a lovely warm weekend, definitely feeling on the edge of spring with crocuses and snowdrops out in the garden. However, here’s another one from last weekend’s walk in the forest. This is taken at sunset, as the suns rays were directly horizontal onto the tree trunks, coming from the […]
Sun, clouds and fresh snow on the Monadliath Today: a celebration of the elements. We had an inch and a half of fresh fluffy snow when I awoke this morning, the first we have had here in the Highlands since December. It has been an unusally snow-free winter for us, at least judging by the […]
Hare Tracks in spring snow, Monadliath mountains An image from this week last year, with deep snow and a surface of hoar-frost crystals sparkling and shimmering in the sun – perfect back-country ski conditions. Hares had made tracks all over the moor on the edge of the woods, I loved the play of light and […]
Wherever you go, the birch wood has been resounding to a drrrrrrrrp! of woodpeckers. The Jackdaws have been flocking around the village in huge numbers for much of the night with their chatter-jack-jack. The low-ground snow went into meltdown this week, and a few wretched-looking plants are starting so show through. I hope I have […]
Monadhliath Pine A lonesome pine, above the main treeline, with the view of the Cairngorms from the Monadliath mountains, Strathspey. High up on the hills on my skis, on a perfect surface of hoar-frost crystals sparkling in the intense sunshine – a perfect winter’s day. “We are like islands in the sea, separate on the […]
