Holding on

The forests round here all boast magnificent specimens of ancient pine trees, standing tall and straight. Today's path in Glenmore Forest was fabulous as it wound its way through these mighty columns, across swollen burns and past swathes of heather just about to burst into their purple hue. Quite often roots of the tall pines become exposed by weather conditions through the years and this shot shows one such root system holding on to life like talons as the soil on the banking continues to erode. It made for an excellent geography lesson. Throughout our walk we had the backdrop of the Cairngorms where we had made our attempt on the pocket of snow the other day...... In hindsight we had picked the worst day of our week here, weather wise, for our assault although each boy reckoned that had been one of their favourite days out! They love a challenge.