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The first time I came to Glenmore Forest in 2012, I only caught a glimpse of Ryvoan Pass after our walk to Lochan Uaine, and I knew it was a place that I would want to return to some day.
So we arrived at the car park nice and early, intending to follow the route we did first time round the previous year, through Glenmore Forest. This time I wanted to continue across Ryvoan towards Abernethy Forest. As any of you who have read my other walk reports will know, I love Scotland's native pinewoods.
The weather was classically Scottish on the day, so most of my pictures are hazy and grey i'm afraid.
I love the area approaching Lochan Uaine. Some of the hills around here still have woodland covering them right up to the natural treeline which is a very rare thing to see in the UK.
The rain was pouring down as we reached the loch. I went down to the shore to try and get a few good pictures. Another fairytale-type location, one of my favorite places in the Cairngorms.
We then came out of the trees and had the pass of Ryvoan stretched out before us. This is the point where we had turned back last time. There are 2 different paths which can take you over the pass to Abernethy forest, the largest of all the Caledonian Pinewoods, apparently almost 10,000 acres of ancient woodland altogether. We only got to see a fraction of it today unfortunately.
- The view towards Abernethy
There is tons of natural regeneration on the Ryvoan pass. Baby pine trees are scattered all over the place. There is currently an initiative being carried out by the RSPB to connect the 2 areas of ancient pinewood at Abernethy and Glenmore to make one huge expanse of native pinewood. This is being acheived with planting and deer control, as well as fencing in sections of ground to allow the seedlings to grow undisturbed.
- Baby pine
- Young trees
Abernethy is lovely, you can really smell the fragrant pine and heather and moss, just like all the other forests in the area. We only spent around 20 minutes exploring this area of the forest, then we turned back. I learned later that there is actually a loop where we could have carried on and it would have taken us back to Glenmore.
The forest floor is covered in berry bushes, mosses, lichens and fungi. Much more interesting and better for wildlife than the spruce plantations that are spread all over the countryside.
- Some kind of berry. We saw lots of poo full of these, probably from pine martens!
Then the long trek back . . .
- Back into Glenmore forest. We had a brief stop at the bothy but it was full of cigarette smoke so, ya know . . . yuk.
The weather picked up as we got closer to the car, so I managed some good photographs in the improved light.
Some of the older pines have grown into amazing shapes!
I'm sure I will return to these forests again at some point, there is so much to explore.