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Craigellachie meander

Craigellachie meander


Postby malky_c » Wed May 19, 2021 9:10 am

Route description: Craigellachie, Aviemore

Date walked: 08/05/2021

Time taken: 2.5 hours

Distance: 8 km

Ascent: 310m

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Date: 08/05/2021.
Distance: 8km.
Ascent: 320m.
Time: 2 hours, 35 minutes.
Weather: Drizzle gradually easing.

After 5 weekends in a row of good weather and camping out, we decided to take it a bit easier this Saturday and just pootle down to Strathspey for a short day walk. Our most ambitious plans had involved Creag Dhubh or Creag Liath down towards Newtonmore, but the poor weather suggested Creag Bheag behind Kingussie instead. As it was, the weather improved slightly by the time we reached Aviemore, and I decided that Craigellachie would give us a very similar walk but 12 miles closer.

We parked by the YHA and crossed beneath the A9 by the tunnel behind the MacDonald resort. We were in the Craigellachie nature reserve now, and wound our way between a couple of lochans. It was raining, but only lightly.


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Carn Eilrig

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Passing the old reservoir

We made slow progress uphill - the path is good though, and eventually we were out of the trees, then at one of the summits (I'm pretty sure the first one reached is the highest).

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Path up through the woods

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Clearing the woods

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Looking across Aviemore

The views were quite reasonable despite the higher Cairngorms being mostly obliterated. We had been debating a test-run of our new skis up there, but the weather looked hideous higher up!

Jackie had spotted a track that could take us an alternative route down, having rejected my tried-and-tested route down the SE then E flank. A short wade through the heather (fine really) took us beyond the southern end of Lochan Dubh, after which we contoured back to the north and eventually picked up a quadbike track only shown on the 1:25,000 map. This dropped us nicely down to the Burma Road and Lynwilg.

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Lurcher's Crag and Carn Eilrig

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Lochan Dubh and SW along Strathspey

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Western Cairngorm plateau and Loch Alvie

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Creag Dubh and Ord Ban

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Descent to Lynwilg

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Across the A9 at Lynwilg

Unfortunately the last bit ends up being on the verge of the A9. Fortunately the verge is about 4 times the width of the road at this point! An underbridge put us on the road through town, and we finished off our trip with a trip to Miele's for ice cream just as the weather was improving further.
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malky_c
 
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Joined: Nov 22, 2009
Location: Glasgow/Inverness

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