The Highlands

Over thousands of years the action of glaciation, water and weather upon the highland plateau has eroded the landscape to form the mountains and glens we see today.

The local rock type plays a big part in the appearance and vegetation of the area. Granite (Aberdeen is known as the Granite City) weathers uniformly except along fractures and joints resulting in the massive smoothed slopes so characteristic of the Cairngorms.

The highland landscape although beautiful, is also dangerous and generates its own fickle weather. It is not unusual for snow trapped in the huge, rock walled north and east facing corries to last through the summer nor is it unusual for the last snows of winter to fall in May or the tops to be lightly dusted white again in early September. Four season equipment is never inappropriate in the Cairngorms.

The Cairngorm area like many others appears to be suffering the effects of climate change, with the struggling ski industry being an obvious example. Whether we are dealing with global warming or not, the changing weather dynamics of the Cairngorms provide endless options for scientific study.