Crawl up Cairn-mon-earn

[superstar_tradesman]

After a really enjoyable run up Kerloch, I headed back along the Slug Road thinking I wasn't quite finished for the day. So I turned off a few hundred metres SE of the high point of the road, to park in the parking area at grid ref 781909.

Looking back from the car park to the Slug Road

Having looked at the map, it seemed like the easiest way was to follow the track NE round the back of the hill, which would eventually lead to the summit. So I plodded off, soon realising that I didn't have much left in my legs beyond a slow jog. Like Kerloch, the forest wasn't especially pleasant to look at—mainly thick plantation and areas of grotty felled trees.

But I persevered, and after a track loop though a felled area and back into the forest, I emerged at the top, picked my way past the various towers and buildings to reach the summit cairn and trig.

I can see the sea from here!

Cairn-mon-earn's Lowther-esque summit hardware

There was a better view a wee bit further over to the west, from a bench, including back to where I'd been earlier in the day.

West from the summit to Kerloch and beyond

Northwest to Banchory and Pressendye

I wasn't too keen to retrace my steps back down the track, but there hadn't looked like any easy way directly down through the forest to the track I'd ascended. But then I spotted a faint path, with bike tracks, heading down in the direction of my car, so I followed it out of curiosity as much as anything else. It followed a line of electricity poles down a ride between blocks of forest (obvious on the OS 1:25k map). While the path occasionally petered out or became boggy, it soon got me back to the main road and a larger bog just NW of the car park.

A last plod up the track to the car, and that was me done for the day, another Sub2k raid in the NE completed. And, when I got home, I realised that if I'd kept going up the track for another 18m (18!) of climb, I'd have made that Strava 1750m of ascent April challenge! There's always next month…