Britain's biggest national park is a granite plateau the size of a small country, and about as empty
At 4,528 square kilometres, this is the largest national park in Britain, designated in 2003 to protect a high granite plateau that behaves more like the Arctic than anywhere else in the UK: dwarf willow, snow bunting, weather that changes by the hour.
Below the plateau, the pine gives it away. Fragments of Caledonian forest, the old wildwood, survive in the glens, and the rivers running through them are among the last in Britain still allowed to flow freely. Reindeer graze here too, the only herd doing so freely anywhere in the country, which tells you most of what you need to know about how far north this feels.
Ben Macdui rises at the park’s heart, second-highest ground in Britain and usually cloud-bound. The Cairngorm Mountains sit within the wider park, a distinction that matters more on a map than underfoot. Further south, Mar Lodge Estate holds some of the finest surviving pinewood, run with conservation rather than sport as the point these days.
None of this is gentle walking country. The plateau holds snow into summer some years and turns hostile fast the rest of the time, so a forecast check and a map that covers the whole route, not only the bit near the car park, are not optional. Distances between shelter are real distances. Plan accordingly, and enjoy the fact that so much of it still feels genuinely wild.
