I did a lot of hikes in the Cairngorms. I generally picked a morning hike around sunrise and a late afternoon hike before sunset. During the middle of the day, I generally did something easy. With this blog I am writing about two hikes on one particular day.
My morning goal was to hike to a peak just to the west of Aviemore in the predawn and hopefully arrive at sunrise. This peak is called Craigellachie, meaning “rocky hill”, and is a 3.1 mile trail with a climb of about 900 feet up from a carpark at a youth hostel, past a couple of small lochs, and up beyond the trees to a peak overlooking town. I thought it might make for brilliant photography as the sun crested the distant mountains and shown down on the town. When I got up early that morning, it was a steady rain though. Never fear, I found that it had been raining in the early morning hours and finished up before dawn. So, grabbed all of my gear and made the short drive to the carpark and headed up the trail, in the rain. It rained as I hiked past the little lochs but eventually calmed down as I started the climb; the muddy climb. I saw a few deer in the dark hours darting off as I approached, with not enough light for a photograph. The sky kept a heavy cloud cover all the way up. I began to lose hope of a nice sunrise photo.
I eventually made the peak and was able to overlook the town of Aviemore to the east (see above photo). I waited around in the cold wind well after dawn, taking a few photos but mostly the clouds persisted. There is a loch on the other side of the peak called Loch Dubh that I photographed. In the photo below you can see the cairn atop Craigellachie on the left with Loch Dubh in the valley below.
I got some OK photographs, but not the beautiful sunrise that I had hoped for. I’d love to try again, but I was only here for a few days and this was the day I had for this hike. After this, I slogged back down through the mud and went to find some breakfast at a cafe near the hotel. Later that day I went to a wildlife zoo, which was fun, not sure if I will blog about those photos.
For the evening, I drove down to a town called Kingussie for a hike up a peak called Creag Bheag. “Creag Bheag” means small rock in Gaelic according to an internet search engine. It is a peak of 1589 ft. but the hike up to the peak from Kingussie is only 984 ft. and about 2 miles to the top and back. I got to a carpark near the base of the trail timed such that I would get to the peak maybe half an hour before the sun was scheduled to set. The first part of the hike up through the trees is relatively boring, but once you clear the forest it is quite beautiful. In contrast to the morning, the sky had a few clouds but was mostly sunny so I had some nice views. It did rain a few drops as I neared the peak but it wasn’t bad and it did make for a short-lived rainbow. In the image below you can just see a rainbow beyond the cairn at the peak of Creag Bheag, yes I enjoyed very much saying “Creag Bheag” a lot during this hike.
Like Craigellachie overlooking Aviemore, Creag Bheag overlooks Kingussie. Perhaps this would be an excellent pre-dawn hike for sunrise as well. But in the late afternoon, Kingussie falls into the shadows of the mountains to the west. In the photo below, you can see the town of Kingussie in the valley with the distant mountains still lit by the setting sun.
The next image below shows those mountains to the west that the sun was sinking behind. I didn’t really get a lot of high clouds in opportune places for a colorful sunset, but I did enjoy the sun on the mountainsides.
Probably if I had been there a month sooner, the heather would have been in full bloom but I didn’t find much of it to photograph in late September. Instead I tried to focus on some outcroppings of granite.
It was cold and windy and I hung around the peak until well after sunset in hopes of a little color, but alas none appeared. I hiked back down in the dark with a flashlight (or torch) so I wouldn’t stumble. I saw a few deer and a lot of rabbits. All-in-all, a good day of hiking even if it didn’t lead to any photographic masterpieces.
