“Morning Mountains, Skye” — Soft atmosphere and clouds above the Cuillin Mountains, Isle of Skye.
On our final morning on the Isle of Skye back in May, as we drove to leave the island and head north, we came to an overlook of the Cuillin Mountains — or “Cuillin Hills” or “The Cuillins,” as they are sometimes known. These are high (for Scotland) and rugged peaks famed for their climbing opportunities. The range is composed of the higher Black Cuillins, rising to the right side of this image, and the Red Cuillins, which include the large peak at the left.
“Two Highlands Peaks” — Soft light on green hills and two distant highlands peaks.
We came upon this scene while driving north from Ullapool, Scotland and then taking a diversion out toward the coast. (We were intrigued by signs promising that we would find blueberry scones, and we just keep going until we… ran out of Scotland at the coast! Sadly, we never found the scones.) We were traveling along some lowland valleys, and at the top of one short incline we looked back and saw this view. Initially the entire scene was shaded by clouds, but since it looked like sunny spots were moving across the landscape we waited until some of that light landed on the foreground.
“Looking Toward Skye” — View over a mountain loch toward the Isle of Skye, seen from the road to Applecross Pass.
While Scotland’s Isle of Skye is, for good reason, a very popular place to visit, you can also find great views of the Isle and its mountains from along Scotland’s less-populated western coast. After our visit to Skye we headed north to Ullapool, and from there drove a long loop out to the village of Applecross. Before turning south toward that spot the route hugged the coastline, offering continuous views across the water to islands including Skye.
“Desert Gold, Black Mountains” — The Black Mountains rise above a gravel fan covered with desert gold flowers, Death Valley.
As one bit of evidence that it might not be exaggerating to call this year’s flowers a “super bloom” I offer this photograph of a dense field of desert gold flowers, backed by mountains that are also beginning to show signs of spring growth. To be sure, not every gravel fan and wash in the park had this many flowers — far from it. But in many places the amount of color has been exceptional.
This photograph looks south toward the north end of the park’s Black Mountains, the ridge that runs along the east side of the main valley. It is an impressively rugged range, and it can be challenging finding a way to photograph it from this angle — the distance produces a lot of atmospheric haze. But on this day the air was relatively clear, and the colorful flowers and side-lit mountains gave the scene more definition.
