Read about our trip to to Scotland and enjoy the information on this page about this amazing place.
Fascinating facts about Scotland
The geology of Scotland is unusually varied for a country of its size. Much of Highland Scotland was once attached to Greenland and eastern Canada and was part of what geologist term the “North Atlantic Craton” (including Laurentia) which slowly broke up over at the least the past 1000million years through sea floor spreading caused by the North Atlantic Contintental Drift.
The Highland Boundary Fault is visible from Conic Hill. This topographic ridge is mainly due to the presence of Devonian age conglomerates on the southwestern side of the fault and can be traced across Loch Lomond on the islands of Inchcailloch, Torrinch, Creinch and Inchmurrin, to Ben Bowie on the western shore.
( The above Information was kindly given by Gordon Stove CEO Adrok Ltd. )
Although today Ben Nevis is a pretty wet and wild part of the Scottish Highlands, this towering mountain was once sculpted by the forces of ice and fire. The mountain is all that remains of the inner dome of an enormous volcano that exploded around 350 million years ago.
Clocking in at 1345m above sea level, Ben Nevis is Scotland’s highest mountain, and the tallest peak in the UK.
Carn Mor Dearg is connected to Ben Nevis by a knife edge ridge to rival Crib Goch on Snowdon or Striding Edge on Helvellyn. The ridge is known as the Carn Mor Dearg Arête, or more commonly just the CMD Arête.
The Cairngorms is part of an international family of National Parks and is the largest in the UK, at 4,528 sq km (1,748 sq miles). It is twice the size of the Lake District National Park and bigger than the whole of Luxembourg. The Cairngorms National Park was established in September 2003.
The Cairngorms is home to four of the five highest mountains in the UK;
· Ben Macdui 4,295 feet (1,309m)
· Braeriach 4,252 feet (1,296m)
· Cairn Toul 4,236 feet (1,291m)
· Sgor an Lochain 4,127 (1,258m)
The Cairngorm plateau is the highest and has the most extensive range of arctic mountain landscape in the British Isles
There are 55 Munro’s (mountains above 914m in height) in the Park – and once you have climbed one you can officially call yourself a ‘Munro Bagger’.
The Cairngorms National Park has some of the cleanest rivers and lochs in Europe.
Rivers in the Park, of which 70 per cent are considered to be in good ecological status, have nationally important populations of Atlantic salmon and three species of lampreys, as well as the globally endangered freshwater pearl mussel.
Loch is the Scottish Gaelic word for lake or fjord, while a Lochan is a small loch, there are around 60 lochs throughout the Park, and many lochans.
positiveoutdoor365 