Sunset was close as we climbed back up to the plateau, so we waited for it on a westerly slope. As the sun lowered and reddened, cloud wisps blew up from the valley and refracted its light to form a dazzling parhelion: concentric halos of orange, green and pink that circled the sun. Once the sun had gone a pale mist sprang up from the plateau, and we waded knee-deep in its milk back to camp, from where we watched a yellow moon rise above the Braeriach tors. After dark had fallen I walked to the edge of the plateau, where the young Dee crashed down 1,000 feet into the great inward fissure of
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