The Cairngorms

On Friday, some of the Baylor group went for a hike in the Cairngorms, a mountainous area of northern Scotland. We hiked partway up a mountain on the fringe of the range and back down after walking through the small town of Blair Atholl. I would say that we were in Rohan, but I think that the land of Eorl had more grass and less heather (which I can now definitively identify).
It was pleasant to see "the beauty of the earth...the beauty of the skies". It was fitting that we be reminded, in the midst of our study of the problem of evil, that the world is a lovely and bright place too, that life and goodness and home are older than death and darkness and desolation. Hope, not despair, is the material of legend.

Looking back along our road after we passed through Blair Atholl.

The line of rocks marks an old stone boundary.

The mountains were cloaked in fog as we made our way toward them. I think this is about where I started feeling like I was in Rohan.

Looking back again.

A beautiful little lake. There were lots of swans in the water and lots of sheep alongside it.

The ruins of a stone wall in the middle of the purple-brown heather.

Our mountain before us, blanketed in heather and swathed in mist.

A shot back as we climbed the slopes. You can just see where the streams filling the grassland below us glint in the sun. A whole web of them crisscrossed in the valley, appearing suddenly from beneath the grass or running beneath it to burst forth some distance later. Pretty nifty.

A distant peak, sprinkled with the remnants of winter's snow.

Looking back as we descended. We made it to the first tiny patch of snow, which we found, when the fog lifted, to be a mere third of the way up. Well, we tried anyway.

Farmland in the hills beneath the mountains.

This monument was erected near where the Marquis of Montrose (formerly a Covenanter) raised the royal standard of King Charles I (before the king was beheaded), gathering 2000 clansmen for the Royalists (Catholics) during the English Civil War. He was, later that year, to defeat six superior Covenanting forces to take Scotland, briefly, for the king. What a sight it must have been to see this valley filled with Highland Scots gathering for war.

Another shot of the valley, dotted with sheep. It would not surprise me if this land has been farmed since before the signing of the Declaration of Independence.

Also, here is a shot of North Street in St. Andrews on a sunny day. That steeple marks St. Salvatore's cathedral. Beautiful little town, isn't it?