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this is a report of a walk we did back in 2009, july/august.
early morning we left edinburgh and arrived to cairngorm ski centre about 10am. the morning was nice so we decided for a cairngorm-ben macdui walk.
it was our first visit to aviemore, heard so much about cairngorms before and had some expectations lol i was quite surprised that those gentle 'bellies' were one of UKs highest mountains, but they've got their own character, i would say.
here you go -that's the first impression on cairngorms by the foreigner
anyway, we started ascent to cairngorm station (ptarmigan) and then after taking few pics we continued to the summit. again, i was surprised how.. bald it is. we descended to the plateau, which was just like the moon landscape to me.
when we reached Stob Coire an t-Sneachda the weather dramaticaly changed, we dissapeared in the fog and heavy rain. that would be a very unpleasant moment but something else cought our attention - a herd of raindeers approached us. slowly but they were coming closer and closer, and for a minute i actually lost my confidence
as i had no idea what to expect from them, and they were very close, closest i've ever been to wild raindeers (which never happened before). finaly one of them sneezed and they ran away. but that was AN EXPERIENCE to me anyway
in the meantime the rain stopped and we almost decided to go for ben macdui (got as far as lochan buidhe) but again the fog covered everything, and again the rain started so we didnt really bother anymore. we descended from cairn lochan towards ski centre.
that was a good day, full of surprises
here are some more pics
http://around-scotland.blogspot.com/2009/08/cairngorms-cairn-gorm-stob-coire-t.html