A perfect day, until I broke my leg

[Amycox]

When we set off from Edinburgh early on a June Saturday morning, it first appeared to be a dreary overcast day. Questioning our decision making, my partner drove up the A9, a road which we have, for better or worse, become extremely familiar with, and we looked up at the cloud-covered mountain tops.

We parked at the Cairngorm Ski Centre and headed up the Northern Corries Path towards Ben Macdui with a fair few other walkers. The path was good and we swiftly made our way to the top, shrouded by clouds. As we walked through the mist, it was easy to see how the legend of The Big Grey Man, Am Fear Liath Mòr, had come about in the first half of the 20th century. A ten foot creature, only ever seen in the fog , and sometimes heard as the sound of footsteps behind uneasy walkers and one or two large footprints spotted. J. Norman Collie famously ran down from the top of Macdui back down to Rothiemurchus Forest after hearing the “crunch” of footsteps behind him whilst walking alone in 1891. Of all the possible reasonable explanations, my favourite is the Brocken Phenomenon, whereby a shadow of the observer appears opposite a bright light source onto a cloud and leading to the appearance of a tall dark looming figure.

Whilst watching other walkers take bearings from the top of Macdui, and wondering if we’d even brought our compasses, we took the track down to Loch Etchachan and turned off up to Derry Cairngorm. The cloud cleared and we seemed to have shaken off all the other walkers who did only the tallest Caringormian mountain that day and we had our lunch from the top.

We headed back down to Loch Etchachan and took the path up to Beinn Mheadhoin. This was, finally, my 100th Munro! The Tors at the top provided excellent scrambling, only one necessary to get to the summit. It was at this point that the weather had really cleared and we had the most beautiful view.

We then proceeded to the slopes above Loch Avon; this is my partner’s favourite stop. Despite setting the bar VERY high, I too was impressed. He then had us look for the famous Shelter Stone - a huge, house sized boulder with some space for sleeping below. After a long time looking, we eventually found it about an hour later.

We walked up the passage towards Cairngorm and reached the top of the park’s eponymous mountain. Atop it the Heriot-Watt University's weather station which has an astounding fastest wind gust measurement of 194 mph recorded in 2008. Fortunately, it was a beautifully still day for us.

We descended off the mountain through the ski resort, which feels slightly eerie out of season. We walked down the walkers track back towards the Ski Centre car park.

It was at this point where it all went wrong.

With nothing but pizza on our minds (we had been discussing what we would be ordering at Cheese and Tomatin in Aviemore for the previous 4 hours), we picked up the pace and I started using my partner’s walking poles for balance on the gravelly path.

I am still unsure how, but I slipped down the path and my right ankle hit a stone which was making up part of the water drainage system.Thinking was just a bit of pain from the shock of the fall, I got up and tried to walk on it for about 50m, but quickly realised that something was not okay.

I would find out several hours later in the Raigmore emergency department that it was actually a distal fibular fracture. My partner was unable (or more likely, unwilling) to carry me down, and we were left to phone Mountain Rescue (MR). Whilst we waited, another walker came down the path past us, and my partner asked him to check at Glenmore Lodge that the message had got through.

It turned out this chap was fortunately a Coast Guard Pilot who would normally be the one to pluck us off the mountain. The legendary MR arrived only 2 hours later and wheeled me off the mountain in a stretcher.

It was an excellent day with a frustrating ending but I am unbelievably grateful to the MR team for getting me off the hill. They are a registered charity and you donate to them so they keep doing the amazing work they do.