Images of Assynt

I spent last week in the Assynt area of the NW Highlands of Scotland, based just outside the village of Lochinver.  It was a long trip (5 hours north of Glasgow), to a very sparsely populated area of lochs, lone hills, peat bogs and bleak beauty.

Any visit to the Highlands in winter is a gamble with the weather, and this time the House won.  For the first few days there were gale force winds, and the mountain forecast, with typical bluntness, was describing movement on the hills as "extensively tortuous".  This put paid to many of our hill climbing plans, and left us looking for low level shoots.  At least the strong winds had the benefit of blowing through the clouds quickly, giving ever changing conditions.  As we experienced rain, hail, snow and even the odd break of sun, in less than an hour, it brought to mind the old saying that if you don't like the Scottish weather just wait around for five minutes.  Later in the week the winds dropped, which meant we could head high, but also meant that the flat grey cloud hung over us like a shroud.  But such are the joys of both landscape photography and hill walking.  If it were easy, everybody would do it.

 Suilven is the most iconic mountain of the the area.  Although not high by Scottish standards, with no surrounding hills, it stands proudly above landscape, seemingly cutting through the bogs and heather like a shark's fin.  Sadly, possibly because there is no other massive near it, the Grey Castle seems to attract every bit of cloud in the area.  Either there was high grey cloud behind it, giving a dull flat sky, or there was low cloud obscuring the hill itself.  Sometimes there was both, but never, it seemed, neither.  We spent much of the week stalking Suilven from one angle or another.  The picture above was probably my best effort, and seeing as it took a 13 mile walk to get, I include it despite the less than interesting sky.