Access questions aren't confined to rivers; nearly all of Scotland is privately owned. Although it isn't against the law for the public to walk in the Scottish hills, it's not an explicit right, either. There are numerous well-established rights-of-way for walkers and a couple of cross-country trails maintained with government funds. All in all, landowners and outsiders seem to have a rather genial relationship, but this depends on the personalities involved.

When the personalities involved are landed gentry on one side and blue-collar workers from the industrial city of Glasgow on the other, things can get colorful: "There isnie a problem with access in this country," said Frith Finlayson, a former shipyard worker from Glasgow who helped start the Scottish ski industry 35 years ago. He tells the story of a group of his friends who were enjoying a campfire near Loch Lomond when a territorial landlord arrived and made an issue of it: "They burnt the ass out of his trousers," he said, his blue eyes blazing. with laughter under his ledge-like eyebrows.

This doesn't mean there aren't plenty of problems in Scotland. Buckets of blood were spilled during its long history; the people in the Borders still cast a dubious eye south to England, while others easily recall their ancestors being cleared to make room for sheep during the infamous Highland Clearances. Years of Conservative-dominated government left the Scots feeling victimized by the south, more recently rectified with devolution and even possible independence. Even the recent decline of salmon numbers in their major rivers chafes at Scotland's raw political feelings. Driftnetting is illegal in Scottish waters, but it still occurs off the coast of England, although it is being phased out. "Those are Scottish fish being caught in those nets," said one scientist.

War, poverty, and shipbuilding all played a part in the near-demise of the Scottish pine forests, which once covered the Highlands. Less than 1 percent of the ancient forest survived the onslaught that started with the Vikings and has slowed only in recent years. The ruling government added insult to injury by planting monocultures of non-native conifers. A view of crumbling castles and looming mountains will often as not also have a rectangle of evenly planted sitka spruce smack in the middle of it.

Frith Finlayson drives a taxi in Aviemore, a town at the foot of the Cairngorm Mountains, when he isn't teaching skiing. He drove me all around the place during a three-day trip that I took in the area, which is home to mountains covered with sub-Arctic strains of tundra as well as one of the largest remaining stands of Scots pine in the country. The Scots pine isn't shaped like the obedient Christmas tree. These are survivors, made for life in thin soil and cold temperatures: Some are round-topped and robust, others grow gnarled and stunted, nearly bonsai on windy ridges. They're all sturdy and long-lived, with orangish bark that glows in the slanting November light. A good deal of the forest has been protected by the Grant family, which has owned the expansive Rothiemurchus estate for some 500 years. Fences have been built to keep deer from eating pine seedlings and to speed regeneration. Meanwhile, thousands of visitors come to Rothiemurchus to walk its trails and see the forest, not to mention to shoot skeet, take four-wheel-drive rides, and buy souvenirs.

More GORP United Kingdom: Hiking Scotland: Southern Upland Way Climbing Glencoe

The only subject he treated with understatement was the weather: "It's a bit blowy out," he observed one evening, a few hours after the wind had nearly swept me into the North Sea.

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