The Hidden Fires: A Cairngorms Journey with Nan Shepherd

Shortlisted for the Boardman Tasker Award for Mountain Literature

Elemental, fierce and full of wonder, the Cairngorm mountains are the high and rocky heart of Scotland. To know them would take forever, to love them demands a kind of courageous surrender.

In The Hidden Fires, Merryn Glover undertakes that challenge with Nan Shepherd as companion and guiding light. Following in the footsteps and contours of The Living Mountain, she explores the same landscapes and themes as Shepherd's seminal work. This is a journey separated by time but unified by space and purpose, a conversation between two women across nearly a century that explores how entering the life of a mountain can illuminate our own.

An Australian who grew up in the Himalayas, her early experiences of the Scottish hills and weather left her cold. But gradually acclimatising and with an approach like Shepherd's, that is more mountain wandering than mountaineering, she discovers the spark that sets the hills and herself on fire. Through Glover's deepening encounter, the wild majesty and iridescence of the Cairngorms is revealed in this beautiful evocation of landscape, place and identity.

Shortlisted for The Great Outdoors Reader Awards 2024

'Merryn Glover's The Hidden Fires is not just brave, it is remarkable' - Sir John Lister-Kaye

Author: Merryn Glover
Publisher: Polygon
Published: 12/05/2023
Pages: 240
Binding Type: Mass Market Paperbound
Weight: 0.45lbs
Size: 7.72h x 5.04w x 0.79d
ISBN13: 9781846975998
ISBN10: 1846975999
BISAC Categories:
- Body, Mind & Spirit | General
- Travel | Essays & Travelogues
- Sports & Recreation | Hiking