Beautiful sunshine on Bennachie

[LucyScott]

Bennachie ridge-Oxen Craig, Mither Tap and Craigshannoch

Classed as one of Britains best hill walks, this has been high on our to do list. We used the Walkinghighlands walk guide (the longer Bennachie walk) and geeked up on the folklore, poetry and history of the walk by listening to the audio guide of an alternative route, available on the Royal Geographical Society website.
We set off early, for once, and the weather was beautiful. We started the walk from the Back of Bennachie car park, the drive to the car park provided seductive/traumatising views of what was to come! The peak range looks like a giant boob and Bennachie aptly translates to ‘hill of the breast’.

The climb starts immediately, up through a beautiful wood with tumbling streams and a mixture of trees and bushes. When the tree line ends you start a steep climb up to Oxen Craig. Despite the climb consisting of lots of rocks and steps, and being quite steep, fresh legs make it seem relatively mild and we were shocked about how prolonged and arduous the descent down the same track, towards the end of the walk, felt in comparison.
Oxen Craig summit is on a granite tor with fine views in every direction. Being such a popular walking route means that the summit can be quite busy and there were a few people up there at the same time as us, but it was lovely to connect with people high on the outdoors and the achievement of a summit. There’s a lovely/ vomit inducing overhang which would make for wonderful photos if you weren’t trying to take photos while simultaneously trying to look away as your children dangle over the edge.

We then descended a short distance and traversed the ridge across the beautiful Heather towards the giant magma bubble that is Mither Tap. This is where we (Craig) decided we would traverse round to the right of the Tor, I wasn’t convinced as there were sheer drops and I could see that we were about to embark on one of Craig’s off piste adventures. After a leg jellying climb we reached the perfect picnic spot, a flat piece of grass somehow perched among the loose granite and sheer cliffs. We paused for a water stop and small picnic with unrivalled views over to the Cairngorms. Then in true Craig style we had to scramble to the top, the children loved this, me not so much, but we made it unscathed and only having to lift the dogs up one small section. Which ever way you choose to summit Mither Stap, it’s going to be very steep, so I guess at least we made an event of it!
The summit was busy but beautiful and we paused to look at the peak identifier and to reflect on the two plane crashes which have happened on Bennachie, one claiming the first victim of WW2. There’s lots of the wreckage left but we saved this for a return visit.
We then made our way down via the actual route, passing through a Pictish fort and down the steep steps to a smother, more level path towards Craigshannoch. This summit seemed easier than the previous two despite still requiring some stepping up rather steep rocks. This summit was much quieter and it was lovely to chat to two other small walking parties, one commenting on how well the girls had done (we had played cat and mouse with them across the whole walk), they asked if they enjoy the walks and we are very lucky that we were able to reply that they both love the walks, Tilly has voluntary clocked up about 40k this week. We enjoyed some quiet time at the top before descending the peak to reach a level track across the heather until it rejoined the ascent for Oxen Craig, where this time we forked off back down the track we had previously ascended. As mentioned previously, it seemed quite a bit longer than we recalled but our legs were tired and we were trying to beat the rain that seemed to be coming in from out of nowhere. We were shocked to drive home to snow! We had been walking in 11 degrees Celsius and beautiful sunshine, the summits had a chill to them but the level parts and the Forrest, were the perfect hiking temperature.
I understand why these dramatic peaks are ranked as one of the best hill walks in Britain and are protect by the 3000 strong, Ballies of Bennachie, a group of volunteers protecting the hill and its peaks. Nancy won the fall count today at 2 with my new walking boots a massive improvement on my bare foot shoes resulting in only 1 fall for me.
We returned to the car tired and satisfied, clocking up five and a half hours on the hillsides, and having traversed 6.8 miles.
I’m sure we will be back.