Cairngorms National Park
Facts
The Cairngorms National Park is Britain’s largest National Park and has at least 1.4m visitors every year. It is one of fifteen National Parks in the UK and is home to a variety of different wildlife and plants. The Park celebrates its 10th anniversary in 2013.
The Park is 4,528 sq kilometres and is six per cent of the size of Scotland. It is also twice the size of the Lake District and Loch Lomond and the Trossachs National Park.Within the Park lies five of the UK’s highest mountains, plus there are fifty-five summits over 900 metres. The Cairngorms also contains the finest collection of glacial land forms outside Canada, from granite tors to deposits from the Ice Ages.
The Nature
The park is home to a quarter of Scotland’s native woodland and a host of rare plants and animals, including 25% of the UK’s threatened species. In the Park you will also find badger, pine martin, otter, red squirrel, wildcat, Northern damselfly and aspen hoverfly. The Cairngorms National Park also contains the largest extent of semi-natural pine forest in the UK.
Go and Explore
The Cairngorms National Park offers visitors plenty to explore, with lots of different things to see and do. There are hundreds of miles of paths and trials for you to choose from and many different routes to take. You can walk, cycle or even ride a horse, as long as you do so responsibly. Other outdoor activities include orienteering, archery/ shooting, high ropes, quad biking and wildlife watching.
In the winter, CairnGorm Mountain is Scotland’s most popular ski resort. Here, you can enjoy skiing, sledging and snowboarding.
The Park has some of the cleanest rivers and lochs in Europe, perfect for those of you who enjoy a bit of fun on the water. Choose from white water rafting, river tubing, sailing, swimming, canoeing and canyoning. The rivers, Spey and Dee flow through the Park on their way out to sea and are two of the best salmon and sea trout rivers in Scotland, perfect for those with a love for fishing.
With nine visitor information centres and ten ranger bases, it’s easy to find the right help and activities for you, with expert guides, maps & leaflets and hire shops. For those of you who have forgotten to pack the picnic, there are plenty of cafés and restaurants to sit down in and enjoy a bite to eat