This is out of order, but unless you study the map closely you won’t know.  I seem to have hit Publish rather than Save Draft for the post I just finished, “Characters.”

In any case, Glen Feshie is better seen than described.  It’s one of Scotland’s most beautiful glens, according to just about everyone–a long unspoiled river valley, the hills on either side with few trees, and lots of heather, and streams–“burns”–tumbling down their slopes.  Along the bottom is an intermittently grassy plain with groves of hardwoods.

The estate that encompasses it–many, many square miles–is owned by a Danish man who, I was told, is Scotland’s second-largest landowner.  You could look it up.  But I haven’t.

Here’s what it looked like a couple of days ago.

A handsome couple out for a walk on the way to Edinburgh.

 

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Looking up the glen.

 

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Gorse, a needle-defended plant that smells like coconut.

 

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Find the frog.

 

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Lindsay Bryce, Scotsman, former Alaska North Slope oil worker, and unofficial keeper of the bothy in the glen through four estate owners, serving coffee, tea, bread, cheese and apple pie to grateful Challengers.

 

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Liz Robertson fording the river.

 

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The River Feshie, looking down the glen.

 

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Soaking the feet in an icy burn.

 

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Scree.

 

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Spume rising off the Falls of Eidart.

 

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A “stalker’s”–hunting guide’s–path, which turns out to be a not-insignificant source of routes across the Highlands.

 

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A late afternoon rest on a hill coming out of the glen, not a person in sight, the only sound the wind and the birds.

 

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