Shepherd speaks so eloquently and truthfully about the mountain and her experience of it and it has been a joy to read her writings while walking in the Cairngorms.

Just before my Hospitalfield Graduate Residency I visited the Cairngorms, with no destination in mind other than to be close to them again. I did not want to 'conquer' the munro (how would it be possible to conquer something so naturally magnificent and immense?) but instead explored the path from the Glen Doll car park, wherever it took us. Walking without the climatic goal of reaching the top allowed much more appreciation of the landscape, the varying textures and forms of the thick forest, mossy mounds and tumbling piles of granite. 

Walking without a particular destination in mind also mean that when the path opened up to Corrie Fee of Glen Clova, the view took me by complete surprise. Emerging from the thick forest, the landscape unfolds and opens up into a vast amphitheatre. Expansive and breathtaking. We didn't need to struggle up to extraordinary heights, or show that we could scramble up steep rocky sides of the Glen, instead we spent time in this vast space and were grateful.