walks treks climbs - Southern Uplands Cairngorms Skye - Scotland

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The Scottish Highlands have a natural beauty unique of its kind.

W. H. Murray (1913–1996)

Scotland is a country of mountains, from the great heather-clad whalebacks separating it from England in the south to the rocky peaks abutting the Atlantic Ocean in the far northwest. Scotland isn’t large, just 441km from south to north and varying in width from 50 to 248km with a total area of 78,772km², but it mostly consists of wild mountainous terrain. The mountains may not be high compared with those in other countries – only 10 are above 1200m – but many are steep and dramatic and rise directly from sea level. There is a huge variety of scenery packed into this small country. Whether you like climbing steep rock cliffs, snow and ice mountaineering, walking long ridges, skiing over great plateaux, bagging summits, threading a way through the glens, camping beside remote lochans or wandering through old forests the Scottish mountains have something to offer.

Many areas of Scotland are often described as ‘wilderness’. However in the sense of pristine land never affected by humans this only applies to any great extent to the 12 per cent of land that lies above 700m, the montane zone where trees can’t grow (in Scotland’s Beginnings (NMSE, 2007) Michael A. Taylor and Andrew C. Kitchener say that only 15 per cent of montane habitats have been affected by human activities). A place can be wild without being untouched by humanity, of course. I like the definition of the National Trust for Scotland’s excellent Wild Land Policy:

Wild land in Scotland is relatively remote and inaccessible, not noticeably affected by contemporary human activity, and offers high-quality opportunities to escape from the pressures of everyday living and to find physical and spiritual refreshment.

So there is much wild land in Scotland. And that is certainly what it feels like to anyone walking the hills. But too much of the Scottish mountain landscape has been damaged by a slow process of attrition over the decades that has reduced the feeling of wilderness and left the landscape looking worn and tattered. This process goes on, and indeed is accelerating in places, due to the industrialisation of the hills in the name of fighting climate change. All those who love the Scottish hills should ensure they don’t add to the damage (the vast majority of which comes from industrial sources) and support those organisations that protect and restore the landscape.

Scotland divides into three main regions, each trending from southwest to northeast: the Southern Uplands, the Midland Valley or Central Lowlands and the Scottish Highlands, the last including the many islands lying off the west coast.

The Southern Uplands include the rolling moorland hills of the Borders and the more rugged mountains in Dumfries and Galloway to the west. The hills aren’t high – none reach 900m and only seven rise above 750m. They aren’t very rocky either and the relatively gentle terrain will appeal to the walker rather than the mountaineer or rock climber. Scotland’s longest path and the only one that runs coast to coast, the 341km Southern Upland Way, weaves through the forests and moors of the region.

The Southern Uplands dwindle away into the lowland belt where most of Scotland’s population lives, with their last outlier actually in the city of Edinburgh, Scotland’s capital, in the form of Arthur’s Seat. The break in the hills is only brief, however, and from many places in the Lowlands hills can be seen rising to the north, first the Campsie Fells and Ochil Hills, the foothills of the Highlands, and beyond them the first Highland peaks. Mountains then dominate the landscape all the way to the north coast. Of these summits 510 rise above 3000 feet (914.4m), of which 283 are regarded as separate mountains. These are the famous Munros, named for the man who first listed them back in 1891. There are hundreds more lower hills too, all of them offering something to the mountain lover. This is the land of the golden eagle and the red deer, a land wild and challenging.

In the west great sea lochs, Scotland’s fjords, bite into the mountains, twisting and turning their way inland below steep enclosing walls. The mountains here are rough and rocky, jumbled together in tightly packed groups that tower over narrow glens and dark, sombre lochs. The rugged terrain offers challenges to hillwalkers, especially in winter when snow blankets the tops, while the many cliffs offer routes of all difficulties for rock and ice climbers. There is water everywhere with burns tumbling down every hillside, bringing sound to the landscape even on those rare days when the wind is still. After heavy rain the hills are laced with a tracery of white water as temporary streams lash down the slopes. In the glens the burns rush and quiver over the rocks, gathering the water from the slopes above, and quickly turn into short, fierce rivers as they plunge to the sea. In places freshwater lochs and lochans fill the glens, often fringed with trees, remnants of the old Caledonian forest that once covered much of the lower slopes of the hills.

Heading east the hills become more massive and rounded, the glens broader and flatter. There is less rock and more heather, fewer pointed peaks and more undulating plateaux split by long, broad valleys that contain major rivers such as the Tay, Dee and Spey. This landscape reaches its fulfilment in the Cairngorms, a land of huge, high-level sweeps of arctic tundra ringed by steep-sided corries and pine and birch forested glens. When the snow falls this is ski touring country of the highest quality, with opportunities to glide for miles across the summits before swooping down gullies and bowls back to the glens.

The Highlands are split by the water-filled gash of the Gleann Mor (the Great Glen), stretching coast to coast from Fort William to Inverness. North and west of the Great Glen the mountains are even more rocky, rugged and tangled in the rough lands of Ardgour, Moidart and Knoydart. This is wild, remote country, hard of access but full of rewards for those who make the effort to get there.

Further north still the hills become more ordered, stretching out in long ridges between big wide glens – Shiel, Affric, Cannich, Strathfarrar. Here you can stride for hours high above the world, in the heart of the Highlands, with hills fading into the distance all around. Once Glen Carron is reached the Highlands change again. Now the mountains are isolated steep-sided rocky peaks and ridges; strange shapes soaring abruptly out of boggy moors dotted with shining lochans. Here the sense of wildness is even stronger and there is a primeval feel to the landscape. These crumbling rock giants are ancient. You can feel the age of the earth as you clamber over its bones. There are fewer hills here and as the north coast is approached the numbers dwindle even more and the distances between them grow.

From the west coast and many of the western summits islands can be seen, ripples of dark ragged peaks, mysterious and exciting, against the bright sea. The southernmost, Arran, lies in the Firth of Clyde, cut off from the other islands by the Mull of Kintyre. Arran is divided itself too; half Highland, half Lowland. Tucked into the northern Highland half the mountains are compact but steep and rocky, a surprising challenge in such a little space. Heading out to sea and northwards the Inner Hebrides line the coast from Islay to Skye. Four are of particular interest to the mountaineer – Jura, with its distinctive Paps, Mull, Rum and Skye, the latter holding perhaps the finest mountains in Scotland, the Cuillin, a curving jagged ridge of volcanic rock containing an amazing array of cliffs, pinnacles, towers, spires, arêtes and buttresses.

From Skye a long line of undulating land can be seen to the west. The Long Isle appears unbroken but in fact consists of a chain of islands, the Outer Hebrides or Western Isles. Most are low, with fine machair beaches the main attraction. Harris and South Uist however have rocky hills, the last western outpost of the Highlands. To reach comparable hills further west you now have to cross the Atlantic.