Sad but welcome news for the family , they will be able to begin the process of grieving , many thanks to the efforts of the various MR teams who been involved with this search.

Dear Lynne, I am so pleased that your Dad has been found. I had every faith that he would be found like my husband Grant Cunliffe. Although very very sad what has happened to him, you can lay him to rest in peace and begin the slow process of grieving.

You must be congratulated on raising a terrific amount of money for the Rescue Teams who risks their lives for others.

I am thinking of you, your family and friends.

Kind regards Linda Cunliffe

Thank you for your kind messages.

Our family are so thankful for all the support we have received over the past months from both friends and strangers. We've been so touched by how caring everyone has been and how generously people have given in support of the MR teams.

From the very beginning, the rescue volunteers have given us every reason to put all our trust in them. They gave us hope when initially we thought nothing could be done for our dad. As the days passed, they treated us with honesty and helped us come to terms with the overwhelming loss. Moreover they reassured us and showed a commitment to our dad that never once wavered. Words can't say what we feel for each and every one of them.

I'd like to ask that our dad is not remembered as 'a body found in the Cairngorms' but as a doting father, an adored brother, a loving son and of course a true hill lover.

I remember a man in Bob Scott's, happy and at home in the hills. A hill lover doing what he loved!

Dear Lynne and all family members and friends of Jim -

I don't know exactly what prompts me to write, other than that I am a hill lover just as Jim was. I and a friend passed through the area in late April 2016 a good month and more after he went missing. I showed my friend the bothy (which I had stayed in many times in the past) as she had never been there before. We read the notices regarding Jim's disappearance, the first we had heard of it. I was most touched by this news - I had broken an ankle near Loch Avon some years before and might have suffered Jim's fate had I not been found before it was too late. But the snow in spring 2016 was everywhere deeper and more persisting than is often the case. Jim, although I never knew him, was in my mind all the time we were there that month (we kept our senses sharp but saw nothing to note) partly because of my own brush with one late winter in the Cairngorms, and partly because my own children are more than aware of my own adoration of the Highlands, and would be shocked, of course, if I were to go missing, but not necessarily so surprised. If I die doing the one thing I have consistently loved more than anything - bar my own children - no one would not be able to say I died doing the one thing I loved almost more than - and please don't misunderstand me, anyone - life itself.

I truly hope that you, and all your family and friends, have been able to come to terms with your sad loss, and that you too are able to say Jim died doing the thing he loved so much. To this day, this time, I still think of Jim and yourselves. I now live to the north west of the Cairngorms on the Wester Ross coast, but I still stray down to the 'Gorms from time to time. In any case, and in any area I am backpacking, through, round, and occasionally over the remoter parts of these wonderful hills we call home, I think of Jim from time to time, and of you and yours. You might find it strange to say that I miss him too, having never met him. But he lives in my mental map of the Highlands, always, and I wanted you to know that he is still thought of, elsewhere and by strangers.

My love to you, even these 4 years later. You might never even read this, being on an old stream re-Jim, but this message will be in the ether, somehow, ongoing, and I just wanted you to know that some people share the joys and pains of all who set foot onto our hills, the giant brother and sisterhood of the remote places.

Most sincerely,

Bob Phillips.

Hi Bob,
Thank you for such kind words and thoughts.
It has taken me all this time to come to terms with the fate of my brother Jim and your words are so comforting.
Although the rest of my family have visited Bob Scott’s, I have never been there, I did try visit on my own one day but could not face it and turned back. I do hope to make the journey one day.
Thank you once again and I will let the family know people are still thinking of Jim four years on in time.
Yours truly
Stephen Robertson