This was all we saw of Buachaille Etive Mor...

... as a blizzard descended on our way back to Fort William. No less imposing for the fact you can barely see it!

Return of the Winter - Today on Rannoch Moor

First stop Ballachulish - 2 goldfinches sighted as I was setting up this shot. Bird book says they don't come to these parts...

Bit of a cliché this shot. Black Rock Cottage and the Buachaille Etive Mor. Unmissable, though, on a day like this. And only one other photographer active at the time!! That would change as we headed down to Lochan na h-Achlaise and the Block Mount Bens...

Still, I think I was the only one that bothered to take a shot of these snow-encrusted trees.

And here we are at the Lochan. Stunning cloud formations - you can tell it's still snowing up there even though we're in bright sunshine. Good day, though the breeze precluded any good reflection shots today

Met this fellow just where the road turns down towards Loch Tulla. Frequent visitors to these pages (if there are any) may recognise him from an earlier post on December 4th last year. He was also on our 2007 Xmas card to select acquaintances. Fine chap. Good to see him again.



And again, stunning skies above Loch Tulla...

2007/8 : A Winter Retrospective - Part 1

Laid up through most of January with a busted rib or three, I didn't get much photography done, but here area a few shots that show some of the delights that winter can bring to Lochaber:

Driving snow in Glen Nevis

It often is on winter afternoons that the light is at its best for photographing the highland landscape. The low sun casts long horizontal shadows and somehow the colours - more muted in some respects than the greens of spring or summer - seem more vivid than at any other time of year. The three shots which follow were taken while driving home from the RSPB Insh Marshes wetland centre near Kingussie. Taken over an hour or so and I guess about 30-some miles, they show how the light develops as the sunset progresses

Ruthven Barracks as the sun goes down

This reminds me I must get more shots of Loch Laggan...

Loch Laggan

...whose water level is at its maximum here, as can be seen at the dam at its western end, which supplies electricity to the National Grid as well as the Fort William aluminium smelter

Laggan Dam

It may not be much, but it's here....

The first snow of winter 2007, now showing on (from right to left) Ben Nevis , Carn Mor Dearg and Aonach Mor, from I'd guess about the 3700 ft mark!


(Picture taken noon today)