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IT is impossible to
describe adequately the sombre beauty of the tragic Pass, as we saw it for
the first time in the grey light of a September afternoon. From
Ballachulish Ferry, we followed a white ribbon of road along the ragged
edge of Loch Leven, between rows of white-washed cottages with roofs the
colour of dark smoke, past the sad little burial-island of the MacDonalds,
and so onward and upward, through silver thicket and green meadow, to the
threshold of the Glen o' Weeping.
From here, the hills unfolded before us, wave upon towering wave; blue
where the shadows lingered about their feet, splashed with deep purple
where the heather-bells blew in the rising wind. There were long-horned
sheep grazing on the lower slopes, and stray sea-gulls calling plaintively
as they floated down the stark heights above. From time to time, the
mountains hid their faces in the clouds; and it was at such moments that
we felt most strongly the compelling atmosphere of this tragic place,
where every blade of grass seemed to whisper the dark history of a bygone
age.
We passed Ossian's Cave, a deep cleft high in the shoulder of Aonach Dubh,
and so came to the flat-topped mound known as The Study, beneath which we
paused to look back at the glen below. It was then that a single shaft of
light pierced the clouds and trembled down over the rugged faces of the
hills, turning the whole valley to gold, and causing the still surface of
Loch Triochatan to flash and shimmer like a mirror held out to trap the
sun. It was an unforgettable moment, the more exquisite because it was so
brief. When the clouds once more rolled together, shrouding the hills in
their habitual grey, we were left with a sense of having found life
triumphant in the very Valley of the Shadow...
Glen Coe with Loch Triochatan -- "National
Trust Property" |
