From my Osprey Camp sketchbook, July-August, 1973: I would have done some sketching on the summit of Cairngorm on Wednesday but the cloud never rose and my hands were numb. I was counting people who got to the top (4,084 feet). It was like working in a small cold but well frequented moon . . . The ride on the ski lift was great fun.
Note: In the Cairngorm Visitor Survey, during the period 19-25 July inclusive, 2,677 people were recored at the summit with a maximum of 900 (exactly!) on 23 July and a minimum of 65 on 20 July.
I was there on the final day.
On Wednesday evening David [a surveyor from Edinburgh] and I took the night watch. l started, then realized that I’d already read ‘The Assailants’ by Stan Barstow so I read another short story from Argosy 1970.
The ospreys stretched their wings the wren sang round the hide. It began getting light at two thirty to three and got lighter and lighter. The chaffinches came for biscuits and a squirrel. But the ♂ didn’t bring a fish – they seemed to be finishing off the monster fish he staggered home with last night.
On Friday afternoon we walked up to Einich. Eight miles along a track built to transport pipes to the loch. We didn’t have time to climb the steep sides. No eagles. But two Ring Ousels. A good walk though.
In the evening with Jean and Peter walked along the firebreak; kestrel, capercaillie, mistle throstles, small brittle skinned brown puff ball type fungus; along past Malachi until it was possible to cut across the moor and back to camp where I had another go at Chris’s mini. It looks as if it’s breathing this time; keep trying.
