The fateful calling-up papers had arrived and I calculated that, if the firm let me leave on Saturday, I should have just four days of freedom before being engulfed in the army. Four days! It was May and I pictured sunshine in the glens, cloud shadows racing over the dappled peaks, and the sparkle of hill burns as they ran free between birches shimmering in new green. I would go to the hills and forget the war in the short gIory of peace.

Where should I go? Of all the Ordnance Maps I know there is none so compelling as the Cairngorms. Contours steep and brown enclose single dotted lines -- tracks -- that climb over and round them, by blue lochs and rivers and green stretching woods of pine, free from civilizing roads. And the names of Monadh Mór, MacDhui, the Pools of Dee, Braeriach, sound the final attraction. It was a tiny spot amongst the dark shading (which means wild rocky country) marked 'Shelter Stone' which decided me. Here was a place I had always wanted to visit. I pictured myself basking in the sun beside the icy waters of Loch Avon over which the stone sits. It has a reputation for inaccessibility.

Four days' food, spare paraffin for the Primus stove, sleeping-bag, spare clothes, etc, made a tidy load and my overloaded Bergen, like myself, creaked a bit as I tried it on. 'Good training for the army,' I registered mentally. The sun was shining when I arrived in Aviemore by the Sunday paper train. Over the blueness of Rothiemurchus Forest dark clouds were piling on the hills but my heart was lighter than the rucksack and I stepped it out, impatient to get into the wilderness and among the pines.

Two miles to Coylum Bridge and a yellow finger of post pointed to 'The Lairig Ghrù'. A path of pine needles stretched invitingly and birds were singing in the woods. The adventure was begun and I swung on happily. What a wonder of track that is, especially where the old Caledonian pines thin out high above the river, and the little gullies of birches brilliant with green and silver are revealed in glorious contrast to the sombre tints of pine and hill. Here, a hen goosander circled round me calling harshly. Big clouds kept piling over the peaks but did not obscure the sun for long.

High up, below Sròn na Lairig, a peat-bog with bleaching arms of bog pine invited a fire. It is good material for burning and in a few moments I had a can of tea boiling above its blue flame. Below me was the sunlit forest straggling upward to Carn Elrig. The summit of the pass felt obligingly near. A dipper flashed past and from the burn-side a thin burst of song finishing in a trill of elation told of a wren.

Soon I was amongst the boulders and, taking it slowly, breasted the rise to the summit of the pass with an case which surprised me and my forty-pound pack. Soft sunshine lit the sloping screes to beautiful tints of red. Beyond my wilderness of scarred hillside, the verdant country of Speyside was far below and remote as another world.