One of the handy things about writing on mountains is that human development, erosion and vegetation change aside, they’ll outlive us all. The following pamphlet produced by ‘The Cairngorm Club’ on 2 July 1891, has some wonderful, poetic descriptions of two of the mountains in the Cairngorms – Ben a’ Bhuird and Ben Avon.
The largest granitic protuberance …… presented & marvellous yet majestic spectacle. It looked like the blackened ruined wall of a vast fortress. Fancy a gigantic wall of granite, partially disintegrated, having its face divided horizontally into large tabular segments and intersected perpendicularly by fissures, the mass presenting a Titanic dyke longer than, and nearly the height of, the Castle Street elevation of the Union Bank, and you will have some idea of the protruding stacks of the back bone of Ben Avon
There are valuable records of rare alpine plants and descriptions of rare geological features like ‘sub-aerial’ denudation.
It also provides a fascinating insight into state of the transport network in the nineteenth century and those interested in ‘joined-up’ travel networks could do worse than get inspiration from this gem!
