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Scotland · National park

Cairngorms National Park

Britain's biggest national park: the high arctic plateau, the ancient pinewoods of Speyside and Deeside, and five of the six highest mountains in the country.

The Cairngorms are a different kind of mountain. Where the west coast hills are steep and sharp, the Cairngorms are a vast granite plateau over 1,000 m, split by deep glacial passes and holding the UK's only arctic landscape. The weather up there is the most serious in Britain, and the walking on the plateau, in the right conditions, is the best.

Below the tops, the park is as rich as it is high: the Caledonian pinewoods of Rothiemurchus and Glen Tanar, the lochs of Badenoch, the royal Deeside of Balmoral, and the long glens of Angus running south off the plateau. Aviemore, Braemar and Ballater are the bases.

Highest point
Ben Macdui, 1309 m
Area
4,528 km²
Designated
2003
Walks mapped
155
TRXO regions
Drumochter, Atholl & Glen SheeLochnagar & the Angus GlensCairngormsMonadh Liath & Creag Meagaidh

155 walks

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