Some travelers like to know everything about their destinations before they depart. I can understand — one reason we travel is to learn about new places and, more practically, knowledge can help you travel efficiently. But I’m partial to not knowing everything in advance, instead leaving plenty of room for discovery. (Of course, it helps — a lot — that my wife is a planner!) The details of this photograph may be a case in point. (There has been an update to this post. Click the “more” link below to see… more.)
After we left the isle of Skye on our recent visit to Scotland we headed north. For me, the idea for that trajectory came from a moment in a video that I saw a few years ago the featured some impressively wild country, along with the fact that we hadn’t been to that part of Scotland before. We happened by this scene more or less by accident while driving north from Ullapool. While I could find this location again if you set me down in the part of the country, I can’t precisely tell you where it is or the names of the lake or the mountain.
Update: After comments (which you can read below) and assistance from Brian Scott — a real Scot and a real Scott — and my wife, Patricia Emerson Mitchell… I have updated the photo to reflect some ground truths. First, as Brian points out and as I already knew, a lake in Scotland is called a “loch!” That encouraged Patty (a.k.a. “The Research Queen”) to check the location information on an iPhone photo she made here, which led us to identify the lake, I mean loch, as Loch Ewe.” I found it on Apple Maps, and was able to confirm by looking at the satellite view and seeing the island with trees and its smaller companion. That in turn led us to look for the ID of the mountain, which we now think is a peak called “Canisp.” Accordingly, I have revised the information on the photo and its title.
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G Dan Mitchell is a California photographer and visual opportunist. His book, “California’s Fall Color: A Photographer’s Guide to Autumn in the Sierra” (Heyday Books) is available directly from him. Blog | Bluesky | Mastodon | Substack Notes | Flickr | Email
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You are looking at Loch Awe.
Love,
Your wife who takes iPhotos which gives her the location.
Ah, yes, the smart one of us who remembers that doing an iPhone snap grabs the location. Thank you!
(Now I will need to update the title of that photograph… which is a bit more of a trick than it might seem… but which I’ll do this evening.)
If I just knew the name of the peak…
And… further research (thanks, Patty) suggests that the peak is called “Canisp.”
Heh. I suppose you are right. In Scotland a lake is a loch. :-)
Now I have to think about whether to change the title or not…
By the way, we absolutely love Scotland, in case you cannot tell from my posts. We’ve now visited twice for a total of close to a month, and we hope to return.
OUr first visit was, in part, probably a more typical American tourist trip. We landed in Glasgow, then headed to Oban for a few days before going to Fort William to start a one-week walk of the Great Glen Way. We (obviously) arrived in Inverness and then did the real tourist thing, visiting Glasgow (which we loved), Edinburgh and Sterling.
This time we started in Inverness and rented a car. That allowed us (with all due precautions for this right-side driver) to spend a few days on Skye before heading north on more or less the NC500 route. After returning to Inverness and dropping off the rental car, we made a brief visit to Aberdeen, since my wife had long-ago memories of an earlier visit.
It’s a Loch Dan 😉👍