![\"Ben](\"\/\/www.walkhighlands.co.uk\/images\/by-ben.JPG\")
Cloud. We're intimately familiar with it in Scotland. We spend one half of our leisure time cursing it for obscuring the mythical golden orb in the sky and pouring rain on us, and the other half blindly stumbling through it on murky hillsides.<\/p>\n
Such is life in Scotland, but if you\u2019re anything like me then you\u2019ve probably done more than your fair share of cursing AND blind stumbling this winter.<\/p>\n
Provisional statistics from the Met Office show that Scotland, on average, notched up just 100 hours of sunshine this winter. That\u2019s barely more than one hour a day! 78% of normal. I don\u2019t need Met Office statistics to tell me the obvious, though. All I need do is consult my mirror.<\/p>\n
\u2018Mirror mirror on the wall, who is the palest of them all?<\/i>\u2019<\/p>\n
By this time of year my face should be bronzed from a winter trudging up snowy hills in sunshine. Well, not sunshine per se, more sunny intervals with the obligatory exfoliating wind, but according to my mirror we didn\u2019t even get that.<\/p>\n
As a redhead I can cope with being pale but the final straw came on 28th<\/sup> February, the last day of the meteorological winter, on the last of just three snowy walks I managed all season. Ben Wyvis<\/a>, Ben Vrackie<\/a> and Beinn a\u2019 Bhuird<\/a>. Sunshine was forecast on all three occasions but all three failed to deliver. All three were shrouded in cloud despite occasional teasers of hope.<\/p>\n Cowering behind the Clergyman\u2019s Stone that afternoon as the horizontal snow blew past, I pondered my cloud-thwarted winter. If I\u2019d had the power to banish cloud there and then, forever, I\u2019d have done so.<\/p>\n But suppose I had<\/b> that power and Scotland was now fated to be a sun-kissed, parched paradise for all eternity. What would I have deprived us of?<\/p>\n Tempting as it is to demonise cloud and see it as just a big grey wet blanket hovering at hill level, as an obstacle that limits our enjoyment in the hills, it\u2019s just not that simple. Had I banished clouds in that moment of frustration I\u2019d have overlooked the fact that they are responsible for some of the most perplexing and memorable sights you are likely to see.<\/p>\n The unique beauty of cloud and its ability to enhance our outdoor experiences was brought home to me right at the start of the winter. I was half way between Sgurr Mor and Tom na Gruagaich on Beinn Alligin<\/a>, in Torridon<\/a>, under an almost-clear blue sky.<\/p>\n As I approached a bump on the ridge the bright sun became obscured and, instantaneously, that made something incongruous appear in the clouds above the bump: It stopped me in my tracks.<\/p>\n The cloud in question was that lovely, wispy, ruffled stuff that looks like ripples on wet sand. Cirrocumulus<\/i>, one of the highest cloud types at between 20,000ft and 40,000ft altitude. But that was merely the canvas onto which something much more colourful was painted. A beautiful shimmering radiance, looking like mother of pearl.<\/p>\n This phenomenon doesn\u2019t have a fancy name. It\u2019s simply called an iridescent cloud<\/i>. They appear when water droplets or ice crystals bend the different wavelengths of sunlight as they pass through the cloud, and separate them into distinct coloured bands or patches.<\/p>\n Much of the science of refraction and diffraction goes over my head, instead I\u2019m content to just stand there and gawp at the beauty of it all. Had it not been cold to the point of discomfort on that ridge then I\u2019d have stood and gawped all afternoon. I\u2019m not sure how rare they are but certainly I couldn\u2019t recall having seen it before, but it stands in stark contrast to the months of gloom that followed.<\/p>\n But such is the nature and variety of cloud, where it can both disappoint and delight on different occasions and in different places. Sometimes that can happen on just one hill in the space of a few minutes, with cloud rolling in or clearing in an instant.<\/p>\n Arguably though, that narrow zone between disappointment and delight is precisely where you want to be if you want to stand a chance of seeing that most enigmatic and sought-after phenomenon, a brocken spectre.<\/i><\/p>\n Here\u2019s one I photographed on East Lomond<\/a> in Fife last winter. Named after the German mountain where it was observed by theologian Johann Silberschlag in 1780<\/em>, a brocken spectre is an ethereal, elongated figure surrounded by a rainbow-like aura.<\/p>\n The aura itself is called a glory<\/i> and, as with iridescent cloud it involves light being scattered as it interacts with cloud particles. Frankly, the science matters little when you\u2019re confronted with something so rare and mesmerising, but the spectre itself is easier to get your head around.<\/p>\n That\u2019s just your shadow, cast as you stand directly between a low sun and the mist or cloud. If you\u2019re too high above the cloud you won\u2019t see a brocken spectre, and if you\u2019re too low in the cloud then the sun won\u2019t cast a shadow. You need to be right on the line between the two, both in sunshine and in cloud.<\/p>\n Even though there\u2019s a scientific explanation for these apparitions I\u2019m still somewhat in awe of them. The spectre often appears huge and distorted because of the ever-changing movement of the cloud and the lack of any reference points, so that even though I know<\/b> it\u2019s my shadow, it takes on the characteristics of someone else. That\u2019s probably why I move my arms around, just to check that the spectre is<\/b> me and not someone else.<\/p>\n <Ben looks behind him, nervously><\/p>\n It\u2019s a strange illusion that can\u2019t help but reinforce your sense of self, especially when you\u2019re alone in the hills.<\/p>\n Brocken spectres alone make me thankful for our profusion of cloud, but my most memorable walks do tend to be the ones where I witness that interaction between the hills and low-level cloud as they fight for supremacy. Walks when you\u2019re not sure whether or not you\u2019ll get sunshine, where shafts of sunlight break through a gap, and peaks poke up through an inversion layer of cloud into the dazzling blue above. Blanket blue sky lifts my spirits but cloud-borne beauty inspires awe and humility.<\/p>\n And what of rainbows? We\u2019ve all seen a fair few of those in our time but we wouldn\u2019t get those without clouds. Or how about sunsets?<\/p>\n What is a sunset without clouds? It\u2019s just a slightly graded pastel hue stripped of features or texture, deprived of the reflecting glow of cloud bases and denied the oranges and purples you only see when the sun\u2019s setting rays hit the very highest cirrus clouds. Nice, certainly, but spectacular? Probably not.<\/p>\n And finally, of course, we have the limitless and often perplexing variety of overhead shapes that form a backdrop to our walks and give texture, balance and contrast to our eagerly-shared photos.<\/p>\n A big wide landscape shot is often so much better with cloud, adding interest to an otherwise featureless sky. Indeed, sometimes the clouds are more impressive than the hills themselves.<\/p>\n I remember one such occasion on Stob Binnein<\/a> when I was treated to a bizarre display of lenticular<\/i> clouds.<\/p>\n Generally the product of hills and mountains and often reported as UFOs, these beauties can be seen many tens of miles downwind of the hills that generated them.<\/p>\n These particular ones sailed overhead for the duration of my walk and I spent the whole day looking up into the sky rather than out at the hills. It\u2019s not surprising that cloud\u2013spotting is so popular worldwide and that the study of clouds has a name. Nephology<\/i>.<\/p>\n I was rash wanting to banish cloud. In fact, the more I think about it, and despite many of the most striking sights being rare and infrequent, I begin to realise just how integral to my enjoyment of the hills cloud-borne phenomena are.<\/p>\n Don\u2019t get me wrong, I enjoy hillwalking whatever weather I get and I don\u2019t need to see iridescence or spooky apparitions in order to do it. But I can\u2019t deny that those rare moments when I do<\/b> see something extraordinary and unusual remind me why I return to the hills again and again. To see and experience things I am unlikely to find anywhere else. Ephemeral moments of beauty, stopping me in my tracks, able to wash away the memories of recent bad weather.<\/p>\n Which brings us back to this winter. Does the occasional day of dazzling iridescence negate a whole winter of gloom?<\/p>\n Hmm. Well, I won\u2019t deny I\u2019d love to have had a proper winter season where I could get out & about every week. And I confess that I too pine for those blanket blue days. But I wouldn\u2019t want them all the time.<\/p>\n There is beauty in the gloom, in the murk, in the shafts of light from leaden skies. There\u2019s texture and contrast in our cloudscapes. And as much as I might lament the pre-eminence of one particular type of cloud in Scotland, that big dull wet grey blanket, as far as I\u2019m concerned our hills are all the more beguiling and spectacular for being so susceptible to cloud in all its wonderful guises.<\/p>\n Learn more about cloud types and how to identify them at:<\/i> http:\/\/www.metoffice.gov.uk\/media\/pdf\/s\/0\/12_0674_Factsheet_1_Clouds.pdf<\/a><\/p>\n Met Office stats for Winter 2013\/14:<\/i>\u00a0http:\/\/www.metoffice.gov.uk\/news\/releases\/archive\/2014\/early-winter-stats<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" Cloud. We're intimately familiar with it in Scotland. We spend one half of our leisure time cursing it for obscuring the mythical golden orb in the sky and pouring rain on us, and the other half blindly stumbling through it on murky hillsides. Such is life in Scotland, but if you\u2019re anything like me then you\u2019ve probably done more than your fair share of cursing AND blind stumbling this winter. Provisional statistics from the Met Office show that Scotland, on average, notched up just 100 hours of sunshine this winter. That\u2019s barely more than one hour a day! 78% of…<\/span> <\/p>\n <\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":6,"featured_media":10440,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[37,8],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-10433","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-features","category-magazine"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.walkhighlands.co.uk\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/10433","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.walkhighlands.co.uk\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.walkhighlands.co.uk\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.walkhighlands.co.uk\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/6"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.walkhighlands.co.uk\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=10433"}],"version-history":[{"count":14,"href":"https:\/\/www.walkhighlands.co.uk\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/10433\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":10511,"href":"https:\/\/www.walkhighlands.co.uk\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/10433\/revisions\/10511"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.walkhighlands.co.uk\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/10440"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.walkhighlands.co.uk\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=10433"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.walkhighlands.co.uk\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=10433"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.walkhighlands.co.uk\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=10433"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}
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