Cairn Gorm

About Cairn Gorm

Cairn Gorm lends its name to the range but is not its highest point — that is Ben Macdui. Sixth-highest in the British Isles, it presents a broad domed top above Strathspey and is one of the easiest hills to pick out from Aviemore.

The mountain holds the record for the highest official wind speed measured in the UK: a gust of 278 km/h (173 mph) in 1986. Since the 1960s more than 600 hectares of its north-western slopes, in Coire Cas and Coire na Ciste, have been developed for alpine skiing, and the lift system includes a funicular railway in Coire Cas.

Background written from facts in the Wikipedia article on Cairn Gorm (CC BY-SA 4.0). Heights, prominence and grid references come from the Database of British & Irish Hills, not from Wikipedia.

Access rights here

General position for Scotland — local byelaws, seasonal restrictions and closures can override it. Full details: access rights in Scotland · check another location.

Daylight at this summit today

Sunrise

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Sunset

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Daylight

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Civil twilight ends

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Computed astronomically for 57.117, -3.644. Plan your finish with the daylight safety planner.

Finding the summit

The recorded summit point is rock at base of large cairn. On broad or flat summits the obvious cairn is not always the true high point.

Survey method

Leica RX1250

Record revised

27-Jul-15

Drop measured from

NH 9989 0350 · 1099 m

Classification history: col measurement is 1099.0m.

Survey notes are field observations recorded in the Database of British & Irish Hills (v18.3, CC BY 4.0) by the hill-surveying community.

Which hill this one belongs to

Cairn Gorm is not counted as an independent hill in its own right. In prominence terms it belongs to Ben Macdui (1,309 m) — the nearest Marilyn you can reach from this summit without first dropping below its key col, 1,099 m.

Grouping is by prominence alone: a summit belongs to the nearest higher Marilyn it connects to without a deeper intervening col. Over a large massif that can gather hills no one would walk in a single day, and which few would describe as parts of the same mountain — it is a measure of independence, not a suggested route.

Nearest listed peaks