This is the work of a man who has known and loved the Scottish Cairngorms for more than 30 years. Jim Crumley marries a poet's instincts to an uncompromising passion for the Cairngorm's arctic character, and for those wildlife tribes which thrive there. He marks nature's rhythms with thoughtful observations of bird and beast, flower and landscape. In the process he strives for a purer empathy with the wilds, seeks out the nourishing bond of man and landscape. Ultimately, the book asserts that the Cairngorms are nature's place. Crumley proposes a radical solution to safeguard the mountains from a threatening array of forces ranged against them. In his conclusion he invokes what Seton Gordon called "the spirit of the high and lonely places".