The Morning in the Mountains
Every so often I’m reminded of that morning. It’s six years since the three of us took up residence in the hostel under the Three Sisters for a long weekend. We arrived here late on the Thursday evening, carefully plotting our course through the darkening landscape along the A82, across Rannoch Moor before that final descent down into Glencoe. For now we had to imagine the iconic view that anyone who has driven northwards towards the Buachaille knows and treasures. We found our lodgings, checked in, and then stomped along the snowy lane to the Clachaig Inn, another of Glencoe’s many treasures. Game pie and real ale were on the menu that night as I recall. A couple of drinks, some idle chat, and plenty of anticipation. We’d been waiting for this for almost a year, and we were excited. Although we hadn’t been able to see them in the dark, if there was snow on the road, then there would be plenty more on those mountain slopes. One of which we’d be on our way up in the early morning.
This time it was our amusing friend Mr Hardcastle whose recent adventures had brought those memories racing back towards me, as if they’d happened yesterday. The early start, rubbing sleep from the eyes and staring through the net curtains of our triple room into the dark glow outside. A hasty breakfast and a final inventory check before getting into the car. We’d hired a four wheel drive, almost frightened into it by a hard sell at the pick up desk. They hadn’t been the friendliest rental outfit I’d ever used, but the solid feel of the almost brand new Nissan was very reassuring on the icy roads. It was only a mile or two to the layby, and we were there before we knew it, standing at the foot of Beinn a Chrulaiste in the darkness. And while Gavin hadn’t managed to find a way up in his YouTube offering, we’d done exactly what he was wondering whether to try. In his words, we “hoofed it up there,” blundering through snowdrifts, sometimes almost waist deep. This wasn’t suffering though - this was uncompromised joy. This was as good as it’s ever been. Today we were doing stuff we thought only ever happened to other people - people like Gavin Hardcastle and his YouTube buddies. I still pinch myself sometimes. Was it really us, standing on a lofty perch more than halfway up the mountain before sunrise?
It was the first time I consciously kept my raw files rather than all too casually deleting them after the edit, so the evidence tells me it really was us on that February mountain morning in the snow. I could talk about the dawn pastel pinks and blues, and I could talk about the first shafts of soft golden sunlight hitting the slopes of Buachaille Etive Mor and spreading across the empty moor in front of us. I could quite happily tell those stories over and over again. What makes the memory all the more surreal is just how perfect the conditions were as we stood high above the snaking road that morning. It could so easily have been different; we might have come to Scotland to find the mountains free of snow and struggled up here in drizzle or worse, a clag as they say in these parts. To come here all the way from the other end of the country and steal a moment we still talk about six years later was something truly exceptional. We’d more or less finished shooting by the time my brother stopped to gaze out over the dreaming landscape.
It was the beginning of three of the most rewarding days I’ve ever spent with a camera. Three nights sampling the local delicacies in the Clachaig too for the matter. And the haggis and cracked black pepper flavoured crisps in the Co-op at Ballachulish. Who’d have guessed that we needed haggis and cracked black pepper crisps in our lives? Apart from stopping on the way up to photograph that famous tree at Milarrochy Bay on Loch Lomond, we didn’t travel that far from our Glencoe base for any of our shoots. But then in a place like this, you don’t really need to. Only my trips to Iceland compare. And I still have those raw files. This trip was the turning point when I realised the value in keeping them forever.
Hopefully I’ll be heading back to Scotland later this year. It’s long overdue.
The Morning in the Mountains
Every so often I’m reminded of that morning. It’s six years since the three of us took up residence in the hostel under the Three Sisters for a long weekend. We arrived here late on the Thursday evening, carefully plotting our course through the darkening landscape along the A82, across Rannoch Moor before that final descent down into Glencoe. For now we had to imagine the iconic view that anyone who has driven northwards towards the Buachaille knows and treasures. We found our lodgings, checked in, and then stomped along the snowy lane to the Clachaig Inn, another of Glencoe’s many treasures. Game pie and real ale were on the menu that night as I recall. A couple of drinks, some idle chat, and plenty of anticipation. We’d been waiting for this for almost a year, and we were excited. Although we hadn’t been able to see them in the dark, if there was snow on the road, then there would be plenty more on those mountain slopes. One of which we’d be on our way up in the early morning.
This time it was our amusing friend Mr Hardcastle whose recent adventures had brought those memories racing back towards me, as if they’d happened yesterday. The early start, rubbing sleep from the eyes and staring through the net curtains of our triple room into the dark glow outside. A hasty breakfast and a final inventory check before getting into the car. We’d hired a four wheel drive, almost frightened into it by a hard sell at the pick up desk. They hadn’t been the friendliest rental outfit I’d ever used, but the solid feel of the almost brand new Nissan was very reassuring on the icy roads. It was only a mile or two to the layby, and we were there before we knew it, standing at the foot of Beinn a Chrulaiste in the darkness. And while Gavin hadn’t managed to find a way up in his YouTube offering, we’d done exactly what he was wondering whether to try. In his words, we “hoofed it up there,” blundering through snowdrifts, sometimes almost waist deep. This wasn’t suffering though - this was uncompromised joy. This was as good as it’s ever been. Today we were doing stuff we thought only ever happened to other people - people like Gavin Hardcastle and his YouTube buddies. I still pinch myself sometimes. Was it really us, standing on a lofty perch more than halfway up the mountain before sunrise?
It was the first time I consciously kept my raw files rather than all too casually deleting them after the edit, so the evidence tells me it really was us on that February mountain morning in the snow. I could talk about the dawn pastel pinks and blues, and I could talk about the first shafts of soft golden sunlight hitting the slopes of Buachaille Etive Mor and spreading across the empty moor in front of us. I could quite happily tell those stories over and over again. What makes the memory all the more surreal is just how perfect the conditions were as we stood high above the snaking road that morning. It could so easily have been different; we might have come to Scotland to find the mountains free of snow and struggled up here in drizzle or worse, a clag as they say in these parts. To come here all the way from the other end of the country and steal a moment we still talk about six years later was something truly exceptional. We’d more or less finished shooting by the time my brother stopped to gaze out over the dreaming landscape.
It was the beginning of three of the most rewarding days I’ve ever spent with a camera. Three nights sampling the local delicacies in the Clachaig too for the matter. And the haggis and cracked black pepper flavoured crisps in the Co-op at Ballachulish. Who’d have guessed that we needed haggis and cracked black pepper crisps in our lives? Apart from stopping on the way up to photograph that famous tree at Milarrochy Bay on Loch Lomond, we didn’t travel that far from our Glencoe base for any of our shoots. But then in a place like this, you don’t really need to. Only my trips to Iceland compare. And I still have those raw files. This trip was the turning point when I realised the value in keeping them forever.
Hopefully I’ll be heading back to Scotland later this year. It’s long overdue.