A British hiker was treated to the rare spectacle of a Brocken spectre rainbow after climbing to the summit of a mountain in Scotland.

Lauren, who documents her global travels with her partner Craig, had just got to the top of one of the peaks near the village of Torridon in the Highlands on September 16 when she spotted the rare natural phenomenon.

"After summiting a mountain in Scotland the cloud began to lift and the sun pierced behind me...then the magic began," she said.

A Brocken spectre is the magnified shadow of an observer cast upon clouds opposite the Sun's direction.

The phenomenon can appear on any misty mountainside or cloud bank but the frequent fogs of the Brocken, a peak in the Harz Mountains in Germany, have created a local legend from which the effect draws its name.

After summiting a mountain in Scotland the cloud began to lift and the sun pierced behind me...then the magic began when I was treated to a rare Brocken spectre rainbow in the clouds below.