CHAPTER IX 



BRAERIACH IN MIDSUMMER 



AFTER the prolonged heat and drought of a recent 

 May, the month of June brought to the central High- 

 " lands unusually cold and boisterous weather, with 

 much heavy rain in the glens and snow on the tops. 



On the morning of June 26 I made the ascent of Braeriach 

 from Loch Einich, a remote loch lying nearly 1,700 feet above 

 sea level, and found conditions more resembling mid-winter 

 than the longest days of the year. The Bennaidh, issuing 

 from Loch Einich, was rushing in semi-spate under the now 

 long-discarded sluices which were used in former times to 

 dam back the loch in order that the timber from Rothiemur- 

 chus and the surrounding forests might be carried down to 

 the sea in an artificial spate. At the end of the loch many 

 burns were rushing down dark Q)ire Odhar, the largest of 

 them having its birthplace in Loch nan Cnapan, on the Moine 

 Mhor. Sgoran Dubh, near its summit, was powdered with 

 snow, which covered the young green of the blaeberry shoots 

 and the black rocks in a uniform garb of greyish white. 



Within two hundred yards of the upper bothy of Glen 

 Einich a deep bed of winter's snow still lingered, but as 

 a whole the hills were exceptionally free of old snow for 

 so early in the summer. A bitter wind blew up the glen from 

 the north, as, following the stalking path which winds up 

 the shoulder of the hill past Coire Dhondail until it emerges 

 on that wild plateau known as the Moine Mhor, or Great 

 Moss, I came upon the fresh snow at an elevation of 

 3,000 feet. At first it lay in small patches, but gradually 

 became continuous. The severity of the previous night's frost 



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