There was a time when I was living and working in Edinburgh and spending almost every weekend away in the Highlands in my van. The Hebrides were still a bit too far, even from there — their isolation is part of what makes them special — so I made do, happily, with trips to Rannoch Moor, Glen Etive and the Trossachs.
One Friday after work I packed the van without a fixed plan. I often preferred it that way. I knew there was a good chance of snow that weekend, so I threw in my warmest sleeping bag, a gas stove, the brew kit for tea and coffee. In my pocket was a brand new iPhone 6, bought at lunchtime. My rough intention was to head towards Rannoch Moor and see what the weather decided to do.
As I drove north the snow began to fall. By the time the van started the climb up towards the moor the snowfall had thickened, and I found myself worrying that the gate on the A82 would be closed, cutting off the road and my still-forming plans.
Past Tyndrum, the sky closed in. Out on the moor I could see the amber lights of road crews in the distance, clearing and gritting. I felt that quiet elation you get when you realise you’re “in” — that you’ve slipped through before they shut things down. The snow grew heavier, the wipers struggled to keep up, the world shrinking to a tunnel of white in the headlights.
I crossed the moor slowly and eventually reached the head of Glen Etive, a favourite overnight spot over the years. The drive from Edinburgh had taken nearly three hours and I was tired. I pulled into a spot by the roadside and let the van roll to a gentle stop in what turned out to be around two feet of snow.
The moon was out. I could see the road snaking down into the glen, the shapes of the hills softened and simplified by snow and half-light. I poured a small dram, then climbed into my -23°C sleeping bag in the back of the van and settled in, wondering what I might wake up to.
At dawn I woke to find the inside panels of the van coated with ice and the windows packed with snow. I didn’t bother with coffee straight away — I wanted to see the landscape first, to know whether it was still snowing, to get some sense of where I’d landed overnight.
I had to shoulder the sliding door to free it. When it finally gave, I stepped out into still, deep snow all around the van. It had drifted and piled to roughly two feet in places. A practical thought floated in: Will I be able to get back out tomorrow and make it to work in Edinburgh? It didn’t stay long. The place had me. The usual Glen Etive view was transformed — ridges, slopes and boulders all reduced to simple shapes under a pure white covering.
I put the stove on for coffee and, while I waited, remembered the iPhone in my pocket. It had a timelapse mode I’d barely looked at. On impulse, I set the phone on a small tripod beside the van, pointed it towards Buachaille Etive Mòr, and started a twenty-minute sequence.
While it worked away, I went back to the stove and my breakfast, occasionally glancing across at the mountain. The clouds were moving lazily around the peak, new layers drifting in behind, the light shifting in small, quiet ways.
When the timelapse finished I picked up the phone and watched the result.
What had been slow and almost imperceptible in real time became something else entirely. The clouds that had been sliding gently past were now rendered as misty shrouds circling the bulk of Buachaille Etive Mòr. Herds of deer, which I hadn’t even really registered properly in the moment, could be seen moving around the base of the mountain, constantly in motion as they searched for food in the snow.
I was genuinely stunned. I watched it over and over in the van, with my coffee cooling beside me, the outside temperature still well below freezing. It felt like the little device in my pocket had just shown me a version of the glen I couldn’t quite see with my own eyes.
A week later, back in ordinary life, I posted the timelapse online. Nothing dramatic: I uploaded it, tagged it simply “iPhone 6”, “Buachaille Etive Mòr”, “timelapse”, and thought little more of it. It was just a document of a weekend that had felt special.
A week or two after that, an email arrived from an agency in California. They asked if the timelapse was mine. Was it really shot on an iPhone 6? Would I be interested in licensing it to their client for an advertising campaign?
We went back and forth a little, agreed on the essentials, and they sent over an NDA to sign.
At the top it said: Apple Inc., California.
It was an odd, pleasing contrast to take in: a van half-buried in snow at the head of Glen Etive, a cheap tripod, a new phone bought on a lunch break — and then, a couple of weeks later, paperwork from Apple.
It was a reminder I come back to often: not every adventure needs to look grand from the outside. Sometimes it’s just you, a road you know, a familiar glen in new weather, and a small experiment while the kettle boils. The landscape does the rest.
