(From “The future of the Cairngorms” by Kai Curry Lindahl, Adam Watson and Drennan Watson, published by North East Mountain Trust 1982)
"It is grand to see the sunshine ebb on distant hills and the dark shadows of the night rise from the valleys. It is good to hear an untamed stream roar and lap through empty wildernesses where nothing human meets the eye and stunted trees sway dimly in the gusts of driving rain. It is good to watch the creatures of the wild move freely amid the moss and heather of the North. Bleak and stern may be the scene, but in its rich meaning it has more to tell than comelier views of southern climes.
You can sit and hear the ages whisper in the grass- of honest joy, unsugared by pretence, unhampered by convention, and yet unostentatious and quiet; of simple kindness that gives without thinking of reward and does not feel exhausted by its own benefaction; of sorrow that like wind needs no expression to be understood; of courage unconscious of glamour and applause; of life and death conceived to be only two phases of one
There is no haste; no frenzy in the majestic flow of days, and solitude re-echoes the tread of passing time in terms of shade and colour without apprehension or regret."
(From “On Ski in the Cairngorms” by Alex Firsoff, published by W&R Chambers Ltd 1965)