Cairngorms: Britain’s Largest National Park and Its Genuinely Subpolar Climate

The Cairngorm plateau is the closest thing Britain has to an Arctic landscape. At 1,200 metres above sea level, the high tops experience hurricane-force winds more than 100 days per year, carry snow on their north-facing gullies well into June in a good winter, and support a community of species, mountain hare in white winter pelage, ptarmigan, dotterel, snow bunting, that look like they were borrowed from Svalbard. The park itself, 4,528 square kilometres of eastern Highlands, is the largest in the UK and the most ecologically complex. Most visitors see a small fraction of it.

Aviemore is the main access town, 145km from Edinburgh via the A9. The drive is good; the town is functional. Everything interesting is outside it.

The Mountains

The Cairngorm range has five of the six highest mountains in Britain. Ben Macdui (1,309m) is the second highest peak in Scotland and has a reputation, entirely unearned by the geology, for being the location of a spectral grey figure known as the Grey Man of Ben Macdui. This legend is probably explicable by Brockenspectre, an optical phenomenon where a walker’s shadow is projected onto cloud in a halo effect. But it has deterred no one.

The standard approach to Cairn Gorm summit (1,245m) is via the Cairngorm Mountain funicular from the ski centre at 635m, which takes you up quickly for £17 return. The summit plateau is exposed year-round; summit temperatures can be 10-15 degrees lower than Aviemore even on a warm day. Bring windproof layers regardless of the forecast below. The plateau is not a place where forecasts made at sea level are reliable.

Ryvoan Pass from Glenmore is a 12km circular walk through ancient Caledonian pinewoods past Lochan Uaine (the Green Loch, its colour from algae on the bedrock), up through the pass, and back. It is one of the better easy walks in the park and rarely crowded. The pinewoods here are Caledonian Scots pine, remnants of the forest that once covered most of Highland Scotland; walking through them has a different quality from plantation forestry.

Wildlife

The Cairngorms hold every large mammal native to Scotland. Red deer roam the open hillsides in numbers visible from the road at dawn and dusk. Red squirrels are present in the pinewoods. Pine martens, reintroduced and now recovering, are occasionally seen in the Glenmore area. The capercaillie, the large grouse that is Britain’s most endangered bird, has strongholds here; breeding sites are closed to visitors during the spring season and the restrictions are taken seriously.

Ospreys breed at Loch Garten and have done since they recolonised Scotland in the 1950s after a century-long absence. The RSPB osprey centre at Loch Garten is open from April to late August; watching a bird that was extinct in Britain for 70 years fish in front of you is more affecting than you expect.

Whisky

The Speyside distillery region runs through the eastern part of the park. More whisky is produced in Speyside than anywhere else in Scotland; the concentration of distilleries along the River Spey and its tributaries includes Glenfiddich, Glenlivet, and Glenfarclas. Most offer tours from around £15-20 per person; book ahead for the more popular ones. The Scotch Whisky Experience in Edinburgh is the place to understand the product academically; the Speyside distilleries are the place to understand why people actually drink it.

Getting There

Aviemore has a train station (ScotRail from Inverness, 45 minutes; from Edinburgh, about 2.5 hours). The A9 from Perth is the main road route. A car is strongly advisable for anything beyond the Aviemore town centre; bus services within the park are limited outside the summer season.