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Ten days ago attempt one ended in abject failure as I trudged through endless snow drifts up to about three feet and halfway up Muckle Cairn I came to the conclusion I was royally puggled and in all likelihood would run out of daylight so turned and headed for home. It was a weird day, other hills nearby were completely clear of snow or just seemed to have a light dusting but the further I walked up Glen Lee (heading west roughly towards Loch Muick) the deeper the snow seemed to get. Had I wanted to climb Hunt Hill from the Glen Lee side I would have been fine but by just going a mile further up the track the depth of snow changed completely.
Six days ago I was back in Glen Esk (climbing Mount Battock) and the snow seemed to have had a fair shift so another attempt at Muckle Cairn was planned and today was the day.
The forecast promised blue sky all day and it was -1 when I set off from the car park at Invermark, managing to walk about 50 yards before having to stop for the first photo of the day. There's something about this small church which always encourages me to stop and take a few shots.
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- Invermark Church
It's only ten to fifteen minutes before Loch Lee is in view and today it is completely still.
Kirkton with it's cemetery at the shoreline always entices me to stop and just take in the stillness.
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- Kirkton
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- Kirkton Cemetery
Although the car was indicating a temperature of -1 there was no wind (at this point) and with the sun starting to generate a bit of heat it felt quite warm walking along the side of Loch Lee even with just the one layer on. After Loch Lee it was just a case of staying on the main track up Glen Lee.
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- Craig Maskeldie
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- Heading up Glen Lee following the Water of Lee
Another must stop photo opportunity is this tiny little building below the tree line under Wolf Craig.
The track now starts to climb more steeply arriving at this building which I remember using as a marker when descending off Hunt Hill a few years ago.
After a further quarter of a mile there is a burn crossing but there are well positioned rocks just to the left of the track and the crossing proved much easier than ten days ago (which was a surprise after all the snow melt). Within a few yards there is a track heading off to the right and this was my previous route as I looked to head directly up Muckle Cairn but today the plan was different as I wanted to take the track as far as it went along Glen Lee (which was considerably further than my 1989 OS Map indicated). Luckily the Garmin is more up to date and I knew I could cover another mile and a half on the track before I could loop round to ascend to the unnamed 761m point then heading over to Muckle Cairn which seemed to be about 740m high.
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- Water of Lee with Easter Balloch in the background
The north facing slopes of Drumhilt and Easter Balloch still had a good covering of snow whilst the south facing slope of Muckle Cairn was almost completely clear of the white stuff.
Eventually I reached a point where there was a fair amount of snow on the track and I had arrived at an easy crossing of the Water of Leith but the track was then heading up the north side of Easter Balloch and I could see that the snow was getting deeper. I only had a few hundred yards to go before I would be taking a track that looped round and started to climb towards the 761m mark on the map so decided at this point to go off track and just head straight uphill on the southerly slopes of Muckle Cairn and avoid the deeper snow. The Garmin indicated that I was exactly 7.5 miles from the car at the point where I left the track.
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- The track near where I left it
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- End of the track for me
The initial climb away from the track was steep but it didn't take long to level off, at this point there was more snow around but nothing like ten days ago. I quickly linked up with the track again and headed over towards Muckle Cairn but my eye was continually drawn towards Lochnagar which looked snow clad and stunning.
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- Looking down on the track through Glen Lee
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- Lochnagar
It was an easy and flat walk over to Muckle Cairn but the muckle cairn was a tad disappointing..........
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- Muckle Cairn
The views however were terrific and made up for any disappointment with the cairn.
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- Looking over to Mount Keen
It may have been one layer all morning but that changed once I was on the upper slopes of Muckle Cairn where the wind was blowing and it was dramatically colder than the sheltered valley floor so another layer was needed and the gloves were back out.
From the top of Muckle Cairn it was a straight forward walk down to the burn crossing earlier in the day.
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- Looking back at Muckle Cairn
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- Roughly the same place ten days earlier
I now had about a 6 mile walk back to Invermark and now that I was down off the top it was back to one layer in the sunshine (and shelter from the wind).
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- Back at Loch Lee
Having left the car park with one other car and an overnight campervan (yip, they are back) it was a surprise to see so many cars so a lot of people must have headed up to Mount Keen.
My new map of the area arrived by post whilst I was out (after 33 years loyal service it is time for an upgrade) and I can see there is another Muckle Cairn between Glen Esk and Glen Clova. I might just head that way soon and see if it is any more muckle than today's Muckle Cairn (surely it has to be!).
