by Scraggygoat » Fri Oct 22, 2021 2:52 pm
Once you have covered the approach distance and gained the height to the plateau the going is quick. Obviously there are many ways of tackling the Cairngorm 4000ers from linking with the other 4000ers for the hard core, doing in a day, ski touring, backpacking over a couple, doing each side as separate trips, or as a traditional connection route etc.
When my partner used to get Friday off and we had decided to go West she would commonly get the bus to Braemar and then jog through, or go over the tops on one, or other side depending on the weather, or her inclination. I’d then drive round after work to chauffeur further West. She’d always be in Aviemore a couple of hours ahead of me.
It’s also a great place for a night outing in the right weather. I got very excited one winters evening camped in one of the Breariach corries to an inversion forming under a full moon and completely still. So decided to regain the summit and walk the plateau round to Carn Toul. I hoped that I might get a Brocken spectre by moonlight. But sadly the inversion thickened and fogged the hill, so the walk was an eerie monochrome of grey cloud with silver streaks and the odd star where it thinned, occasional glimpses of far hillsides and a monochrome snow scape with reasonable visibility 200m or so, underneath. The cloud deaden all sound so apart from our footsteps there was absolutely no noise. We had a bit of faff and had to get the rope out to find the gap in the cornice (found first time but I wasn’t willing to play Russian roulette in case I’d got it wrong) at the col between Angels Peak and Carn Toul, which would allow our descent to the Lochan. We hoped we’d pop out the bottom of the cloud on our way down to the Garbh Corrie refuge but the further we descended on perfect neve, the thicker and darker it became and we lost all the silver hues, then all ambient light. Finally the torches failed to penetrate on high settings, just being reflected back blinding us and we had to regain the tent in our own little universe comprising a bubble of low light like two little aliens in their on spherical space ships.
Should have just walked back round the plateau in the silver world, lesson learned.
One day I’ll get a night time brocken!