Magic morning in Glen Affric, part 1

In the middle of October I camped out in Glen Affric for a night, near Loch Beinn a’Mheadhoin, hoping for some special autumn weather to go with the colours of the trees. At that time of year there’s often a lot of fog in the mornings, but it’s necessary to be there early to make the most of the conditions, before the sun burns off the low-lying cloud that accumulates over water bodies such as the loch, when night-time temperatures drop significantly.

As it’s an hour and half’s drive from where I live to get to Glen Affric, the best option is to camp overnight, to be up and ready with the camera at first light, and I usually spend a night or two in my tent in the glen each autumn, hoping for ideal conditions for photography. This year, as it turned out, I picked the perfect night for camping, and the sunrise through the fog the next morning was one of the best I’ve seen in a long time.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

The combination of wind-still loch, shifting fog, silhouetted trees and sunrise colours made for some evocative photographs, and after half an hour or so, three other photographers arrived on the scene, but by then the dawn colours had already been and gone.

Once the sun had cleared the horizon, the fog closed in for a while, reducing the visibility substantially, and bringing an ethereal quality to the landscape. I love these foggy mornings in the forest, as they are very atmospheric, and I think of the woodland then as being the forest that stretches back through the mists of time … In fact, the Caledonian Forest in Glen Affric does extend back for a long time, so it’s an entirely appropriate epithet …

The fog also intensifies the colours, and the moisture which coats everything makes them more vivid and vibrant, so it’s really one of my favourite times to be out in the forest. Those conditions don’t usually last for long though, so I was making the most of the morning by not having breakfast until the fog had been burned off by the sun! It’s also possible on these days to imagine that the forest stretches on and on, covering much of the country, as it did in former times … the fog lends itself to images like that …

There’s a group of mature Scots pines (Pinus sylvestris) on top of a knoll near there, and I often go to it to get some good views out over the loch. As the fog was beginning to lift a bit I headed up there, hoping to catch some glimpses of the water as the air cleared. However, the fog was denser on top of the knoll, and the old pines seemed to loom out of the mist, almost like the Ents of Fangorn Forest in Tolkien’s ‘Lord of the Rings’.

In the other direction, the ground fell away from the top of the knoll down towards the loch. There, a number of birches at the peak of their autumn colours, their branches covered with epiphytic lichens, contrasted with a solitary Scots pine that seemed to tower over them, because of the higher ground it was growing on. Looking closely, it was just about possible to see the water, through gaps in the branches, and where the fog was thinning out.

As I watched, the fog gradually lifted, slowly revealing more and more of the view from this beautiful spot. When it was clear enough to catch a glimpse of the loch, the promontory which I had photographed from the loch-side earlier emerged from the mist, still with a perfect reflection in the water. It was a breathtaking moment, on a breathtaking morning, and I was touched deeply again by the magical beauty of Glen Affric …

Looking around on top of the knoll, I saw numerous spiders’ webs, spun between the heather (Calluna vulgaris) and blaeberry plants (Vaccinium myrtillus) on the ground. These webs are there all the time, but they are normally inconspicuous or invisible to the human eye, because of the thin-ness of the strands in the web and the way they blend in with the background. However, on foggy mornings like this, each strand is coated with water droplets from the fog, rendering them visible as the beautiful works of arachnid art that they are. I suspect that the spiders don’t share my enthusiasm for these foggy mornings though, because the droplets make their webs visible and therefore less likely that insects will inadvertently fly into them.

By this time, blue sky was becoming visible overhead, as the sun burned off the fog, and it looked like it was going to be a brilliant sunny day. Autumn is my favourite of year in the Caledonian Forest, not just because of the changing colours of the trees, but also because we often get sunny clear days, and the biting midges (Culicoides impunctatus) that plague the Highlands in the summer have all gone for the year, killed off by the first hard frosts of the autumn.

As the fog dispersed, larger and larger vistas of the forest and Loch Beinn a’Mheadhoin became visible, almost as though Mother Nature was gradually revealing the full beauty of the area. Minute by minute, the views were transformed and the light changed as the foggy morning gave way to bright sunshine and blue sky. The Highlands are known for their highly changeable weather at certain times of the year, and it was definitely one of those days now.

We have a saying for participants on our volunteer weeks at those times of year – ‘If you don’t like the weather, wait 5 minutes…’! – and that was exactly what happened on this day, because the shift from fog to sunshine was so rapid. After an hour or two of drifting fog and occasional glimpses of the loch, a complete transformation took place in a matter of minutes as the sun banished the last of the clouds, and the birch trees were illuminated in their full golden colour by the bright sunshine.

The change in conditions also provided a completely different set of opportunities for photography, so I shifted gears for the rest of the day, concentrating on the brilliance of the autumn colours set against the stunning blue of the sky.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

By this point it was time for me to take a break, so I’ll also finish this blog entry here – the story of the rest of the day, including some video footage, will follow in Part 2 …