Stone Country

The wood of Allt Broighleachan - a remnant  Caledonian Forest Reserve  Tèarmann na Coile Cailleannaich – Allt Broighleachan .    Glen Orchy is well known for its roaring falls and kayaking challenges, and in spate the dramatic Eas Urchaidh boils through a narrow gorge, which in quieter conditions reveals great swirl-holes full of pebbles. The bedrock schist geology of Glen Orchy here peeps through, the cliffs smoothed along layered lines which are the tortuous echoes of our Caledonian Orogeny, when ancient sandstones were metamorphosed into a glittering rock, uplifted and finally eroded to the twinkling mica sand we see today in the river’s gravel banks. Whilst the river is the audible and visible focus of the glen, the quiet hills on each side are steep and cloaked in a noise-cancelling patchwork of Sitka spruce – trees which are often characterised (unfairly?) as a vegetal form of vermin, their pernicious seedlings sprouting everywhere by the roads and tracks, creeping up