Glen Kin

I couldn't resist another snowy hike this afternoon - and in the slow thaw of last night's snow, tarmac roads weren't really an option. Too much slush, too slippery. So this is Glen Kin, or more accurately one side of the glen which lies down the slope on the left of this track, behind that striking dead tree.

By this point, as we emerged from the old forest where the trees are tall and cut off every view, the snow was less wet, more as it had been when it fell, and deep enough to make for really hard work walking uphill through it. Somehow, my feet seemed to be pointing upward at a steeper gradient than the track. But as we came out and saw the encircling hills the sun appeared in a break in the clouds and transformed the whole scene.

Hard work, killing on the knees - but beautiful. This is the glen through which there is a coffin route across these hills in front of me over to the graveyard at Inverchaolain Church on Loch Striven - quite the most midge-infested walk I've ever done - and today it was possible to ignore what R.S.Thomas called "the forest's scum" and see everything in a romantic - if chilly - light.