22-Aug-2020 -- We have hiked for 72 days 2466 km on foot starting in Zurich, Switzerland to reach this confluence point. The start of this hike was back in January 2015, when we began our journey to Paris. We continued hiking to Le Havre, took a ferry to Portsmouth and kept on walking via London, Carlisle and Edinburgh to the nearby village Blair Atholl. The specialty of our trip is that hiking is not done in one go, but in stages. At the beginning, we hiked for the weekend and travelled back home to Zurich by train. When the next opportunity arose, we took a train to the place we had finished last time and resumed our hike from the same train station. A summary of the trip can be found here. We reached this confluence point on day #64 on our leg from Blair Atholl to Kingussie.
The confluence is located in the Cairngorms National Park in the highlands of Scotland. With an altitude of 584 m and peaty ground cover, it is located in a typical high moor. Access is relatively easy when approaching it from the north (Kingussie) – from a small asphalted country road it is a hike of 3 km. We however, started on confluence day 40 km south of the point in Blair Atholl. During the day we crossed the whole park and reached the confluence in the evening at 7:15 PM. We then kept north and reached Kingussie at 11 PM after an exhausting hike of 50 km that day.
The weather on that day was overcast and partly rainy, only when we reached the confluence point, the sun appeared quickly to allow us nice pictures of the confluence area.
CP Visit Details:
- Distance to a road: 3000 m
- Time to reach the CP from the Blair Atholl: 10 hours
- Time at the CP: 7:15 PM
- Measured height: 584 m
- Minimal distance according to GPS: 0 m
- Position accuracy: 2 m
- Topography: hilly
- Vegetation: cotton grass
- Weather: sunny but cloudy, 14° C (felt temperature)
- Given Name: The Long Highland Hike Confluence
The story continues at 58°N 4°W.