Cairn Gorm

From gentle walks to exhilarating hikes, Cairn Gorm offers outdoor adventures for every skill level

- ROBERT WIGHT

THE sixth-highest mountain in the UK and home to one of our premier ski resorts, Cairn Gorm is a busy mountain.

It has an enormous summit cairn and a weather station providing forecasts for the thousands of skiers who visit annually.

The skiing infrastructure can be unsightly, but the road into Coire Cas and the base station make accessing the hills here very easy.

The mountain is also home to Scotland's only funicular railway, which provides access from the base station to the top station, a couple of hundred metres below the summit.

Despite not being the highest mountain in the area - that honour goes to nearby Ben Macdui - Cairn Gorm has given its name to the entire range of hills.

While the infrastructure and crowds make this hill feel far from remote, the views from the summit are wonderful - laid before you is the vast expanse of the plateau. It's a unique and precious landscape - the UK's only subarctic environment.

Other than Ben Nevis, there is no land higher in the UK than the Cairngorms.

The massif is exposed to the full force of storms blowing in from the west, with nothing to break their fury.