On the Road is a weekday feature spotlighting reader photo submissions.
From the exotic to the familiar, whether you’re traveling or in your own backyard, we would love to see the world through your eyes.
way2blue
After our visit to the Outer Hebrides, we took the ferry from Stornaway to Ullapool, and drove to Ballater in the Scottish Highlands, to meet up with a friend who lives in Aberdeen. We spent the next day hiking a loop in eastern Cairngorms National Park, Aberdeenshire. Fairly decent weather, just a spot of drizzle. The start of our hike was such a gradual uphill that I was astonished to see how high we were as we circled back. Long, long downhill to Loch Muick, where Queen Victoria’s hunting lodge (Glas-allt Shiel) is located, within the boundary of the royal Balmoral Estate. My maternal grandmother was born in Aberdeenshire, so a wee bit of connecting with the landscapes where she grew up before she immigrated to British Columbia as a young adult.
Vista from up on the plateau north of Loch Muick, with a low sky.
Another vista from the plateau to the north of Loch Muick.
One son is a botanist, so I took a few photos of colorful moss? Lichen?… Ack.
Tiny conifers? (I’m hoping someone here knows what these are.)
The trail as we begin to loop back toward the loch follows a stream.
And is ‘cobbled’ in places.
Glimpse of Loch Muick as we begin our descent.
Trail along the stream above Loch Muick.
Open Thread: Wind of Change?
Wag
Lovely. I’m especially lichen the third photo.
JanieM
Interesting pictures — beautiful vistas in a way, but also kind of a grim-looking countryside. I spent five days in Edinburgh in 2008 but never got outside the city. On the other hand, I’ve spent lots of time in Ireland, where the relative treelessness in the hills (at least as compared to where I live) was offset by the incredible green of the pastures. Is this Scottish landscape always so brown, or was it because of the time of year?
Mary G
I just did a fun short cruise through Google of native Scottish plants and this Huperzia selago is the only one that looks similar to your mystery one, though it’s green instead of yellow. Much more rocky terrain than I had imagined in Scotland, but another fascinating place OTR has introduced me to, thank you.
ETA: a UK plant ID site with pictures of a yellow specimen. Common name Fir Clubmoss.
Benw
@Wag: Weed expect nothing less! They are indeed lovely pictures. I saw Guardians of the Galaxy 2 so I know that lichen is going to try and kill us all!
Denali
@Way2blue,
I recomend The Living Mountain by Nan Shepard. She gives an amazing description of the beauty of the Cairngorms.
Mike in NC
We stopped at Ullapool during our British Isles cruise in 2019. Quaint fishing town. Then on to Edinburgh.
JanieM
@JanieM: Knowing that generalizations are dangerous, I’ll qualify my own question after a quick check reminds me that the Cairngorms are a good bit higher than anything in Ireland.
Anyhow, as others have said: yet another place to put on the list for someday.
Jay
@JanieM:
It’s the Highlands. Mountainous areas, long logged off, with the accompanying loss of topsoil.
The browns suggest mostly fall, as the dominant plants are grasses, brackens and heathers.
JanieM
@Jay: Thanks.
Jay
@JanieM:
the croft my Grandfather grew up in, is not that far, ( in Canadian miles) from there, so is the abandoned Kirk yard where the rest of his family rests.
Platonicspoof
@Mary G:
Looks like a match.
I entered the image at identify.plantnet.org and got the same result.
Mary G
@Platonicspoof: Cool site, thanks.
skinnyiain
The reddish stuff in the 3rd picture is sphagnum moss. Very common in the peaty, boggy soil of the Cairngorms.
Mike S (Now with a Democratic Congressperson!)
The red plant in picture 3 is a species of Sphagnum moss. Most are green, but a few are bright scarlet like this. I don’t know if they vary depending upon mineral content of the substrate or the amount of light. I’ve never grown one in one of my bogs to see if it stays red all the time or not.
Albatrossity
Beautiful pics and a stark landscape! Thanks for sharing those.
And yes, before the arrival of human agriculturalists, these highlands had trees.
Janiem
@Albatrossity:
Once a long time ago I had an interesting conversation with a forester on a train in Ireland. As the Irish will, he blamed the English. I guess maybe there’s something to that.
way2blue
@JanieM: Our visit was early July, so perhaps the ‘brown-ist’ time of the year. There are conifers at lower elevations, in fact, we passed through a grove of them at the bottom of the trail.
way2blue
@Mary G: Thanks for the plant names. Now I’ll see if my son can ID them…
way2blue
@Denali: Thanks. We only touched a small part of the park. But it’s an easy drive from my friend’s house in Aberdeen, and she loves to hike (we also hiked with her in Norway on a previous trip, perhaps an OTR for another day.)
way2blue
@Jay: My guess is that the former forests here and in the Outer Hebrides were relict forests from wetter, cooler times. That could hang on in our ‘post-pluvial’ era, but aren’t inclined to regenerate if logged.
way2blue
@Jay: Ah. I have only been able to find the birth announcement for my maternal grandmother—not where her family lived. She immigrated to British Columbia as a young adult, as did her Danish husband.
way2blue
@Janiem: In the Outer Hebrides, they blame the Norse. While there, we, by happenstance, visited a local fair and I spoke with a college student focused on preserving their peat & bog ecosystems. He was quite concerned about non native trees being planted in re-forestation efforts.
way2blue
@Albatrossity: Thanks for the link about Highland deforestation—it’s quite informative. And a history that is repeated elsewhere.