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Cairn Gorm – Today is chobok in Korea, the first of the supposedly three hottest days of summer. Indeed, the rains seem to have stopped and the temperatures are now rising, and I heard the first drone of cicadas this morning. In the process of trying to find an English translation of chobok (there is none, really), I discovered that the “dog days” of summer, the hottest days of summer in the northern hemisphere, are so called because they coincide with the return of Sirius, also known as the “dog star.” Just a couple of weeks ago, though, I was on top of a mountain in the wind and the cold and the rain, and the heat of summer was the last thing on my mind.

We were in Aviemore, the starting point of our journey when we walked the Speyside Way back in 2016. This time we traveled from the sea to the mountains, so Aviemore was more toward the end (although not the end, as the Speyside Way now extends to Newtonmore, some thirty or so kilometers to the southwest). When we were in Aviemore in 2016, we did get to spend a little time there before starting our walk, and we took a ride on the Strathspey Railway, a heritage steam train. But there were other things in the area that we had not gotten the chance to do. Aviemore is known as the gateway to the Cairngorms, a mountain range and national park, and it is only a short bus ride away from Cairn Gorm (meaning blue/green or verdant mountain) itself. The bus departs from the train station, and that is where I will pick up the narrative from the journal I kept during our trip. I have edited it somewhat for readability and to provide background information where necessary; I have also included some photos I took during the hike (mouse over for captions).

As with most buses in the area, this one runs once an hour at best. When we got on, we saw a familiar face: The driver was the same driver we had seen yesterday, when he had brought us to Aviemore from Grantown and driven us to Boat of Garten for our visit to the RSPB Osprey Center at Loch Garten. I smiled when I saw him and nodded, and I thought I saw a glimmer of recognition on his face. We bought return tickets and took our seats for the twenty-minute ride. This brought us a pretty good way up the mountain, which rose so gradually from the land at first that I would have been hard pressed to tell where the mountain actually began.

After we got off the bus at the car park, our first stop was the ticket office for the funicular—or, as they call it, the “mountain railway.” We did not intend to take the railway up; instead, we wanted to hike up to the top station (also known as “Ptarmigan Top Station”) and then take the funicular down from there. In part this was because we wanted the experience of climbing the mountain, but it was also due to the fact that they will not let you out onto the mountain if you take the train up; you can only go out to the observation deck, but you can’t go out onto the trail and climb the remaining several hundred meters to the summit. The explanation I had read while researching our trip was that they wanted to limit the number of people on the mountain to minimize the impact on the environment, which makes sense. But the man we spoke with at the information center in Aviemore just before getting on the bus had a different explanation: They didn’t want people who didn’t know what they were doing to get hurt. After all, anyone can take the train up to the top station, and they might not be fit enough to make it to the top or savvy enough to not wander off and get themselves in trouble. I guess they figure that if you can make it up to the top station on foot, you can probably make it to the summit without killing yourself.

Thus, our trip to the ticket office was just to ask if we should buy tickets for the journey down at the bottom station or if it was possible to get them at the top station. The woman at the booth said we could indeed get them at the top station, but she also told us we might want to check in at the ranger station for information on the conditions on the mountain. The ranger station was right around the corner, and when we walked in a ranger came out to talk to us. He warned us that winds were gusting at 54 knots—almost exactly 100 kph—and were forecast to get stronger. This wasn’t unusual for Cairn Gorm; although I didn’t know it at the time, Cairn Gorm holds the official record for highest wind speed on land in the UK. In that moment, though, I simply nodded, thinking that it sounded quite windy. When I showed no sign of balking, the ranger loaded up a slide show of photographs on a monitor that showed us the path we would be taking up—ominously called “Windy Ridge.” He also warned us that it would be very windy at the summit and probably raining. We thanked him for the information and headed outside.

We went around behind the base station and found the trailhead we had seen in the slide show. At the start of the trail there was a lot of heather in bloom—the first fully bloomed heather we've seen so far. We stopped to take a bunch of photos, and a woman passed us walking very quickly, with a determined look on her face. It was already windy then, but as we climbed higher the wind only grew stronger. Before long, we began to encounter people coming back down the trail in droves. They must have started before us, but I could tell by the looks on their faces that they had met with strong winds and decided to turn around. The determined woman was among them, and she seemed just as determined to get back down to the car park as quickly as possible. I suspect these people had not checked at the ranger station before heading up and had been taken by surprise. In retrospect, I find it odd that not a single person warned us of the winds on their way down. Not that it would have mattered. I knew what I was in for (or at least I thought I did), and I was resolved to make it at least to the top station, if not the summit.

Not long into our climb, I was plodding up the trail when I heard a shout from below. The wind must have been just right for the sound to reach me, and I turned around to see HJ far below. She had fallen far behind and I had not noticed, focused as I was on making progress. She held up her arms in an X and then pointed back down the trail. I took out my phone and pointed to it, indicating that we should message each other. A moment later I received her message: “The wind is too strong. I’m going back down.” I replied, telling her that I would meet her at the station, intending for her to take the train up and wait for me there. She replied “OK” and told me to be safe. I looked up, waved, and then turned back up the mountain.

The climb up was quite brutal. On a clear and calm day, it would have been an easy hike, but with 100 kph winds and rain beginning to lash, it was probably the toughest climb I've ever done—at least, it was one of them. The wind kept changing directions, sometimes blowing directly into my face, as if to keep me from going higher, sometimes blowing from behind and feeling like a hand pushing me up the trail. But the worst was when it blew from the side—usually my right side—as that would throw my balance off and cause me to stagger. There were times when I had to stop and just lean into the wind to make sure I had my footing before continuing. With the exception of the rare lull, the wind was always there, sometimes roaring like a freight train, at other times whining like a jet engine, and at even other times rumbling like thunder in the mountains. I have never heard wind like that, and there were times when it took a moment for me to realize that the horrible shrieking I was hearing was not a banshee.

Every step I took was an effort, carefully planned and executed. I had to keep my eyes trained downward to make sure I knew exactly where my next step was going to fall on the rocky trail. I had pulled my hood tight around my face to keep the wind out, so I could only see a small window in front of me—I had no peripheral vision. If I wanted to see any of the scenery, I had to stop and plant my feet before looking around. I did make sure to do this every now and then, if only to take a break from the plodding climb. If the wind had not already been enough to take my breath away, the scenery would have done the job. Even beneath the slate-gray skies and needles of spattering rain, the vast primordial slopes running down to lochs and burns were awe-inspiring. As I stood there in the wind, I found myself wondering if perhaps these forces of nature I was experiencing at that moment had not carved the mountains into their gentle slopes and rounded peaks. In reality, of course, glaciers did most of this work, but the wind probably helped at least a little with the final sculpting.

As I climbed higher, I grew exhausted—not just from the exertion, which was significant but not excessive, but simply from the sheer battering of the wind. This exhaustion was not merely physical; in fact, I would say that the psychological exhaustion was probably worse. I don’t know how to put into words what the constant assault of the wind does to your mind. I felt as if I had never known peace, as if I had always existed as a tiny, isolated figure in a vast, howling maelstrom. The last time I remember being this exhausted by wind was in the Mojave Desert, over twenty years ago now. The wind was not nearly as strong as the wind on Cairn Gorm, but it was equally relentless. Unlike the Cairn Gorm winds, though, which threw raindrops like a thousand needles at me, the Mojave winds sucked all the moisture from my body. I remember drinking an entire bottle of water and immediately being thirsty again. It was brutal—but Cairn Gorm was worse.

Just when I thought I could not take another step, I saw the shallowest of hollows next to the trail. I immediately left the trail and lay down in it. I expected it to be wet from the rain, but the winds had not allowed even a single drop to fall into the bed of long, soft grass. As soon as I lay flat, looking up at the gray sheet of cloud above me, the wind dropped to a gentle breeze. I could see the valley below me beyond my feet, and suddenly everything was peaceful. Having thus lain down, I was reluctant to get up again—not because of the effort it would require, but because I knew that as soon as I emerged from the hollow, the wind would try to tear me off the mountain again. But get up I did. Once more into the breach.

Shortly after resuming my climb up the mountain, I saw the top station in the distance. I sat down beside the trail to message HJ and let her know that I was nearly there. This is when I discovered that there had been a miscommunication. She had thought that I meant the base station, not the top station, and she was still waiting for me there at the bottom. In truth, I could have been clearer by specifying the top station, but I assumed that she understood that. I'm not sure why, after nearly thirty years of marriage, she thought that there was any chance I was going to give up and turn around. We cleared up the misunderstanding, though, and she bought a ticket for the next train up. In the meantime, I plodded the rest of the way to the top station. The trail snakes around the back of the station, where there is a door for hikers coming in off the mountain. There is a bell to ring there, but one of the staffers inside saw me coming and was waiting at the door when I got there.

I stepped inside and the door closed behind me, locking out the howling wind. I let out an involuntary "whew!" and the man laughed and told me I could relax now. He then had me sign in (for fire safety purposes, he said, so they know exactly how many people are in the station), and I saw that there were no other names on the list. “Am I the first person to sign in today?” I asked. He said I was, and I gave a small fist pump. He laughed again, mirrored my fist pump, and said, “Get in!” (This was not a command—it’s a British exclamation of elation at success.) Then he asked me if I was going to walk up to the summit. I hesitated. I knew that the ranger’s warning of high winds and rain at the summit was not an idle one, and it wasn’t likely that I would be able to see anything anyway. “I'm not sure yet,” I said. “How far is it?” He looked out the window and pointed. “It's just right up there.” All I could see was a dense bank of cloud enveloping the mountain from about a hundred meters up the trail. When he saw that I was still hesitating, he added: "You might as well. You've come this far." I had to admit that he was right. And, truth be told, I didn't really need that much of a push to talk myself out of making the sensible decision. In the end, it wasn't about the view, or being comfortable, or even being reasonable. It was about climbing the mountain and making it to the top because that is what I had set out to do.

After a short rest, I buttoned back up, drew my hood in close, signed out of the log book, and stepped back out into the wind. The first part of the summit trail is roped on both sides to prevent people from straying, which is helpful in keeping on course, but the trail itself consists of stones stood on edge that were now slick with rain. Fortunately, at least at first, the wind was not nearly as strong as it had been on Windy Ridge. As I climbed higher, though, the wind became more and more fierce. My hopes of being the first to summit that day were dashed when I saw two French guys coming down the trail toward me. They had bypassed the station and continued straight on to the summit, but I think I had been behind them anyway and probably wouldn't have caught them even had I not stopped. They told me that it was very windy at the summit, and I laughed. They could have told me that it was very hot on the surface of the sun and I would been just as surprised. Still, I appreciated their concern—it was more than I had gotten from anyone lower down on the trail. I think there is a camaraderie between people who make climbs like this, and it is natural to share information. I thanked them and gave them what I hoped was a confident wave before continuing my climb.

Maybe halfway up to the summit—I genuinely don’t know how far along it was—the ropes on either side disappeared and the path was now a faint trail that wound between the stones both large and small that littered the slope. Rock cairns that somehow stayed intact in the wind marked out the trail at about every fifteen to twenty meters, but I could only see about two cairns ahead of me at any given time. The wind grew ever stronger, and I found myself struggling to keep my footing in the rock-strewn landscape. To make things worse, the rain had picked up and there was no place to take shelter from the weather. But I kept putting one foot in front of the other until I finally saw a cairn far larger than the others and realized I had at last reached the summit. I took shelter in the lee of the great cairn, where I took a quick selfie on my phone so that I wouldn’t have to take my camera out in the lashing rain. Not far away was a weather station; I stumbled over to it and took shelter there as well. I was protected enough from the rain (which was whipping sideways across the summit) to take my camera out and take a quick photo of the stickers people had put on the weather station door. I also took a quick video with my camera, mainly to record the horrifying sound of the wind.

I knew that the walk down to the top station was going to be a challenge, as the wind had been whipping into my face on the way up. This did make the going tough, but the wind at my back on the way down was somehow worse, as it felt like Cairgorm itself was trying its best to blow me off its slopes. I stumbled quite a few times, but I managed to stay on my feet, and when I finally reached the roped section I was able to hold on to the rope to steady myself. When I finally made it back down to the top station, I saw HJ standing inside by the window, waving to me. I posed for a photo, doing my best impression of an intrepid mountaineer. Then I went to the door, where another staffer let me in. It was only when I picked up the pen to sign in that I realized my hands were frozen stiff. I eventually managed to scratch out a signature beneath those of the two French guys I had met on the summit trail.

It was after one o’clock at this point, and although I had given no thought to food while on the mountain, once inside I suddenly realized how hungry I was. We went to the restaurant, where HJ had a light lunch of soup and bread, but I needed heartier fare and went for a deconstructed chicken and leek pie that turned out to be good and filling. We went out to the viewing platform in front of the station to take some selfies, but as soon as I stepped back out into the wind I could feel all my energy and motivation leave me. There were a few other tourists out there with us, and for them the wind was merely a novelty that only had to be endured for a few moments before returning to the warmth and safety of the station. It was different for me, though. The wind wasn’t nearly as fierce as it had been at the summit, but it still brought me back to those never-ending minutes when I was exposed to the full force of nature on the bare slopes. It was only at this point that I realized just how sapping the wind had been not only of my body but also of my mind. I dutifully smiled for the selfies, though, so we could get back inside as soon as possible.

HJ already had her return ticket for the funicular, but I needed to buy mine in the shop. I did so and discovered that we had just enough time to watch a ten-minute film on the Cairngorms in the exhibition hall, playing on a massively wide screen made up of four curved screens joined together. It was nice to see the mountains in more clement weather, and without having to brave the wind to do so. Then it was time for the train down, an eight-minute trip punctuated only by a short wait at the halfway point as the ascending carriage stopped to drop off some cyclists. Our driver explained that the two carriages are connected by the same cable, so if one stops, both stop. The views from the glass-walled carriage were impressive, but they were not nearly as breathtaking as they had been when I was out on the mountain. I could have gotten up to the top station a lot more quickly and in a lot more comfort had I just returned to the base station with HJ and taken the train up—but I also never would have forgiven myself for taking the easy way.

Back at the base station, I took a brief detour to the ranger station. When the ranger came out, I told him that I had successfully reached the summit. He asked how it was up there, and for a moment I thought I would say something clever. But the word that came out of my mouth was simply: “Windy.” The ranger laughed and said, “That’s just a breeze around here.” I laughed and shook my head. Just a breeze, indeed.

Outside in the car park, the bus back to Aviemore was waiting. I got on with HJ behind me to find our favorite bus driver at the wheel. I fumbled around for our return tickets, but he just smiled and waved. “Don’t worry. I recognize you.” And then we were on our way, leaving behind Cairn Gorm, the wind, the rocks, and the rain.

In retrospect, scheduling the climb up Cairn Gorm the day before my 26-km walk to Kingussie was maybe not my brightest idea. In fairness, had the weather been fine, it would have been an easy walk. Even with the high winds, though, the physical exertion of the climb did not end up being that severe, and we did spend most of the rest of the afternoon before dinner in the wet and dry saunas at the resort where we were staying. We are not generally given to staying at resorts, but prices for accommodation in Aviemore were high and we got a relatively good deal on one of the older hotels in the resort. We took full advantage of the swimming pool and saunas over the two days we spent in Aviemore, and the following day I was refreshed and ready for my long walk.

This was obviously just part of our trip, but it makes for the best story, I think, so I’m posting this in lieu of a full run-down of the trip. Suffice it to say that the rest of the trip was nowhere near as dramatic, which is probably a good thing. It was a great trip, and I’m already thinking about our next visit to the region. We’ve retired our backpacks, though, so next time around we’ll be hiring a car!