Cairngorms. The Cairngorms guide
Old Caledonian pinewoods, a high granite plateau, reindeer on the hill and the royal glens of Deeside.
The four parts of Cairngorms
The Cairngorms are big country, and that is the first thing you notice. This is the largest national park in the UK, set up in 2003 and covering 4,528 square kilometres, and five of the UK's six highest mountains stand inside it. Yet the high plateau is only part of the story. Beneath the tops lie the broad valley of the Spey, the old pinewoods of Rothiemurchus and Abernethy, and a string of friendly villages where most of the park's 18,000 or so people live.
Aviemore and Glenmore
Aviemore is where most people start, with steam trains on the Strathspey Railway and the Rothiemurchus estate on its doorstep. Just south, Loch an Eilein keeps its island castle in the pines, and the road east climbs through Glenmore to the sandy beach at Loch Morlich, the reindeer on the hill and the Green Lochan up the Ryvoan Pass.
Grantown and the north
North of Aviemore the Spey runs past a string of quiet villages in the pines. Carrbridge has its thin stone packhorse bridge of 1717, and ospreys nest at Loch Garten in the Abernethy forest. Grantown-on-Spey has a High Street of independent shops, a bookshop and a bakery, with the beeches and pines of Anagach Woods on the edge of town.
Kingussie and Badenoch
South of Aviemore the Spey widens into Loch Insh at Kincraig, and Glen Feshie runs up into the hills through old pines. There are small, calm lochans to walk round at Uath Lochans, Frank Bruce's sculptures slowly going back to the woods at Feshiebridge, and polar bears and red pandas at the Highland Wildlife Park.
Braemar and Royal Deeside
Over the hills to the east, the Dee runs past Braemar's castle and the Fife Arms to Balmoral, the royal family's Highland home. Ballater is all granite and Victorian shopfronts, Loch Muick lies long under Lochnagar, and west of Braemar the river squeezes through a rocky gorge at the Linn of Dee.
“Quiet places where your ears ring in silence, loch dipping with just the birds for company or staring down a deer in the woods.”
Polly Cameron
Runs The Dell of Abernethy, Nethy Bridge
Best known for.
The Cairngorms are known for mountains on a grand scale: a high, wind-scoured plateau of granite, late snow and wide skies, with a funicular railway climbing the side of Cairn Gorm. They are known too for the old Caledonian pinewood that survives at Rothiemurchus and Abernethy, home to red squirrels, crested tits, capercaillie and ospreys. Add Britain's only free-ranging reindeer, skiing at Cairngorm and Glenshee, steam trains on the Strathspey Railway, Highland games every summer and the royal country of Deeside, and one visit is rarely enough.
More about Cairngorms
Aviemore is the busy hub, with the railway, the shops and the road up to Cairngorm Mountain, but each of its neighbours has a character of its own. Grantown-on-Spey is an elegant planned town of the 1760s, laid out round a wide square. Kingussie and Newtonmore sit a few miles apart on the upper Spey and share a fierce love of shinty. Carrbridge has its old stone bridge, Nethy Bridge its forest and Boat of Garten its steam trains. Over the hills to the south and east, the park reaches down Deeside to Braemar and Balmoral.
Every season gives you a reason to come. Summer brings ospreys over Loch Garten, paddleboards on Loch Morlich and long days on the hill. Autumn turns the birches gold and fills the glens with the roar of rutting stags. In winter the snow comes, the ski lifts start turning and the reindeer look right at home. Whether you want a hard day on the plateau or a gentle walk round a loch with a slice of cake after, the Cairngorms have both.
What would you like to look at?
See and doReindeer, royal castles and island ruins
Eat, drink and shopMountain cafés, Braemar bars and bakeries
Where to stayCottages, farmhouses and estate hideaways
History and storiesComyns, the Wolf of Badenoch, Jacobites and Victoria
ItinerariesDays we have driven, stop by stop
Getting hereThe trains, the roads and the high passes
What is on in CairngormsSomething new from the Cairngorms every dayWhat is on in Cairngorms
Friday the 16th of October.
Sunrise 07:50, sunset 18:09.
Things you might not know.
Braemar Castle became the first community-run castle in Scotland when the village took on a 50-year lease in 2007 to save it from closing.
From Braemar Castle
The island castle on Loch an Eilein was a home of the Wolf of Badenoch, and rising water has since hidden the causeway that once joined it to the shore.
From The Wolf's Lair: Loch an EileinFrank Bruce made his sculptures at Feshiebridge from the stones and trees where they stand, and meant them to decay slowly back into the woods.
From The Best Walks in the CairngormsBeavers have been released on the Rothiemurchus estate, close to where the BBC filmed the beaver dam for its 1988 Chronicles of Narnia.
From Beaver, Is That You?Queen Victoria's servant John Brown is buried in the kirkyard at Crathie, the little church the royal family attend when they are at Balmoral.
From Things to do in Royal Deeside
At Tàrmachan, a café in an old quarry across the Dee from Balmoral, the sausage rolls are made with venison from the Balmoral estate, with apple and fennel.
From Tàrmachan Cafe
Photographs by denisbin, Peter Trimming, Joaquín Martínez and andersonsrestaurant; A Ch, Chris Bryson, charlie just charlie, S Drury, Scott K Marshall, Iain Johnson, Simon Drury and Mike Grant via Google