Cairn Gorm, Beinn a’ Ghlo, Lochnagar, Lairig Ghru – all names of mountains and passes to inspire adventurous days in the mountain country of the Cairngorms. This is a part of Scotland that largely lacks the shapely ridgelines and peaks of the west and north, but this is what makes it special.
The high plateaux have a sense of space like few other places, and the long, wooded glens make for approaches into the hills that are to be savoured rather than endured. This is big sky country, where wide open spaces and long distances are the norm.
There are other attractions: the weather is drier, the winters are snowier and the summers sunnier than in the west, and in places the Highland midge is less pervasive. The lower hill country is dotted with distilleries and the long rivers provide great opportunities for kayaking, canoeing, rafting and fishing.
Because the glens are long, and often wooded, there are superb walks for lower-level days and many long-distance routes through the hills which have been used for thousands of years.
The trees burst with colour in the spring and autumn, and provide shelter for wildlife year-round. And the old growth remnants of the Caledonian Forest are the most extensive in Scotland. These valleys and forests provide a richness of short walks amongst the mountains that are, in our experience, as good as anywhere else in the world.
This is also the place to see some of Scotland’s most iconic wildlife – golden eagle, capercaillie, red squirrel, pine marten, red deer, salmon and perhaps even a wildcat. Apart from walking, the cliffs of the high corries and glens provide superb rock and winter climbing.
Towns and villages in these hills often appear to be here because of the mountains and not despite them. Braemar and Aviemore seem to share something with Chamonix and Zermatt, not in the sense of towering, dramatic landscapes, but in the mindset of the people who live in or visit these Highland towns.
So, if all that isn’t enough to get you planning your next trip, here are seven more reasons you need to lace up your boots and explore the Cairngorms on foot.
Britain’s most brutal climate
In British terms, the Cairngorms are unique. Nowhere else comes close to the expanses of high-altitude plateaux and the deep, crag-rimmed corries and glens. Six of Britain’s seven highest mountains lie within the central Cairngorms, and they comprise one of the most remote and hostile terrains to be found in the UK, and one of the harshest climates.
This means that those who wish to explore the high mountains must plan and prepare to make the most of their adventures and stay safe. Especially in winter, the difficulty or otherwise of climbing the hills here will be massively altered by the weather and underfoot conditions found at the time (see our winter navigation tips for more on that).
Even minor alterations to conditions can have a dramatic effect on the seriousness and level of hazard of any outing. Therefore, it is essential that the mountain goer assesses all aspects of any route for themselves, both before they start and throughout the excursion.
The Cairngorms experience a unique climate, very different to that of the west coast mountain ranges. Overall, it is drier and colder, and winters can be harsh and long. Snowfall may be experienced during most months of the year and snow remains on the ground long into the summer months.
Snowhole country
Planned nights out in snowholes are possible in the Cairngorms between December and April. And with the all-too-often high winds, it's an attractive alternative to camping. By their nature, snowholes will be at a high altitude and therefore provide a great base for some high-level winter adventures.
However, the skill and experience required for a safe and comfortable night out should not be underestimated. Important factors such as snow depth, avalanche hazard, temperature and drifting snow will significantly affect when and where to dig a snowhole.
Digging a hole big enough for a comfortable night is not a quick job, and even a fit and well-prepared group will generally take around 3-4 hours to dig a suitable structure. Finding suitably deep banks of snow can also be difficult and time-consuming. Therefore, snowholes should not be relied upon for shelter without thorough planning and plenty of time.
Clearly, the ‘Leave No Trace’ ethic very much applies to snowholing expeditions, with an even greater emphasis on the toileting aspects. Burying human faeces in the snow at a popular snowhole site is unsightly and dangerous to those who use the location later. Always poo well away from the snowhole or ideally carry it out.
A free disposal system is in place at one of the key access points to the main plateau – Cairngorm Mountain ski area. Here, the Cairngorm Ranger Service operates ‘Snow White’, an all-year-round, human waste disposal system. Visitors can pick up a container and bags for the duration of their trip and return them at a designated drop-off point.
The golden eagle
Many people think that seeing a golden eagle is rare, yet the observant hillwalker will make regular sightings. That said, their sheer majesty will never be lost on even a seasoned eagle-watcher.
Golden eagles are most likely to be seen in flight, distinguished by their huge wingspan (around two metres), long broad wings with an S-shaped trailing edge and effortless soaring with barely a wing flap. If lucky, one may be fortunate enough to look down on an eagle soaring along a cliff edge when the golden nape might be visible.
They can be confused with sea eagles, but the latter are much more common in the west of Scotland and have very broad, straight-edged wings. Golden eagles are most active from autumn to early spring, and most easily seen when the weather is clearing after rain, often as a silhouette gliding across a glen.
Other birds of prey to be seen by walkers in and around the hills of north-east Scotland include the buzzard, osprey, peregrine and hen harrier. One very rare visitor is the snowy owl, an occasional Norwegian vagrant that has been seen around Cairn Gorm and Ben Macdui in recent years.
Hidden gems
The Cairngorm mountains gave their name to one of Scotland’s best known semi-precious stones, the ‘cairngorm’. A ‘cairngorm’ is nothing more than a single crystal of coloured quartz, often known as ‘smoky quartz’, due to its colour and translucence.
In the early part of the 19th century cairngorms were sought after for inclusion in jewellery and Highland dress. This increase in demand resulted in large numbers of people scouring the mountains searching for lucrative crystals. Nowadays, some keen crystal hunters still spend time in the hills, but this is a labour of love, not a money-making endeavour.
As a hillwalker, you may be lucky and come across one, most likely in the gravel wash of an unfrequented part of the hills, or in an erosion scar caused by recent rainfall. So, keep your eyes peeled in areas like that; finding a cairngorm won’t make you rich, but it will enrich your day.
Ancient woodland
A special feature of these north-eastern hills is the quality and quantity of woodland that grows in the glens and foothills, especially the pinewoods. Worth seeking out and exploring for their own sake, and for the hillwalker they can make a delightful start and finish to the day.
It can be anywhere from exhilarating to alarming stepping out of the shelter of the trees on any of the approaches to Lochnagar and an immense relief to step back in when pursued by wind and snow.
Some of the most attractive forest starts are in Glen Feshie, at the northern approaches from Aviemore and Glenmore to the Lairig Ghru, the Ryvoan Pass, around Derry Lodge, the approach to Lochnagar through Ballochbuie and alongside the River Tanar as Mount Keen is approached from the north.
The native Scots pine forests of the area are the most extensive in Scotland, and perhaps the largest area of natural woodland in the UK. Scots pine as a species is geographically widespread, having a range that stretches from Spain to Norway and right across Russia as far as northern China.
Here in Scotland, there is a variety of the species, adapted to living in the wetter and windier climate that we endure. Although these trees can live for up to 600 years, the oldest in this area are the 350-year-old trees in Ballochbuie and Rothiemurchus – these trees were young when London was ravaged by the Great Fire and the massacre occurred in Glen Coe.
Even older is a pine in Glen Derry described by Andrew Painting in his book Regeneration (2021) that is almost 600 years old. That tree used to co-exist with wolves and lynx, and who knows, may do so again.
The trees can grow tall and straight, short and bulky, or cling to rocky ground with contorted and exposed root systems. At high altitude, they grow in forms stunted and twisted by the wind.
Scotland’s summer snow
Nowhere else in Britain has as much arctic-like landscape as here. Standing atop one of the summits the view is akin to the landscape of northern Scandinavia. Loose soils support only the hardiest of plants. Doughty fauna, such as the ptarmigan, can be glimpsed between boulders.
One other feature that makes the summer vista so unlike anywhere else in these islands is the presence of long-lying patches of snow. Clinging on months after winter is spent, snow patches pock the hollows and cliffs of leeward slopes.
They are found in greater number here than anywhere else in Scotland. Only the top 300m or so of the Ben Nevis range is comparable. Given there are few features on the plateaux to hold the snow, it is no surprise that winter depths at the foot of the corrie cliffs can run into tens of metres.
From at least the 17th century, writers have marvelled about seeing snow in summer on the Cairngorms. More recently, in the early 20th century, the naturalist Seton Gordon was apt to record patches of snow that always survived from one winter to the next. Gordon was the first to approach the subject with any scientific rigour.
In recent years, Scottish snow patches have attracted a hitherto unknown level of national and international interest. Helped by social media, and allied to discussions around climate change, it is not difficult to understand why.
In 2018, all snow disappeared at Scotland’s snowiest place, Garbh Choire Mor of Braeriach, for the second consecutive year. This was unprecedented but was repeated in 2021, 2022, 2023 and 2024.
Prior to these disappearances, records of snow at Garbh Choire Mor noted that it disappeared only in 1933, 1959, 1996, 2003, 2006, 2017 and 2018. The frequency of complete melting is accelerating.
Aside from the curiosity value of long-lasting patches of Cairngorms snow, they also possess great beauty. In summer, the wind and water carve great channels and tunnels through the often metres-deep snow to form otherworldly shapes, with hues of emerald green and azure blue.
Nowadays the snow is as famed for these features as it is for its scientific worth. If temperatures continue to rise along current trends, summer snow patches in the Cairngorms could become artefacts of history.
This would be a great pity indeed. Plants and birds that rely on this hyper-localised ecosystem will be at risk if the snow disappears. But it is not just the wildlife that will be affected.
Who can look on a late summer’s evening at the dome of Ben Macdui and not be stirred by seeing this magnificent hill glowing rusty red, with relics of winter still lying deep on its shoulders?
A wilder future
Cairngorms Connect is a partnership project that aims to restore natural habitats across 600km2 of connected land within the Cairngorms National Park – from the River Spey to the summit of Ben Macdui.
It's an initiative with a 200-year vision to restore woodland to its natural limit (including high-altitude montane woodlands), restore blanket bog and forest bogs, and restore natural processes to river floodplains. The outcome should be a landscape that is wilder and richer in wildlife.
Who's writing?
This article was written by Iain Young, Anne Butler and Heather Morning, authors of the excellent The Cairngorms & North-East Scotland, published by the Scottish Mountaineering Press. In it, you'll find more reasons to love the Cairngorms, plus mapped routes and recommendations for your next adventure.