free to be able to rate and comment on reports (as well as access 1:25000 mapping).
A long time ago, in a galaxy long since forgotten (before 2020, then), there was a forum called Scottish Hills. I was never a member of it, but I remember a discussion on here about the longest views in Scotland / the British Isles, which linked to a SH walk report about an incredible climb of Ben Macdui (December 2008 rings a bell?) The person in question climbed Macdui on a freezing cold day of exceptionally high pressure, temperature inversions and possible atmospheric refraction, and turned their camera East at the summit to zoom in on a cloud formation way out to sea... only, the more they looked at it, it didn't really look like clouds...? Was it...... Norway?!?
Scottish Hills is sadly defunct now, and the link to the original report is broken. I'll forever be kicking myself for not saving the image at the time (don't suppose anyone has it?) But at least there are some similar threads here, discussing remarkable views of well over 100km in and around Scotland, and in some cases over 150km:
https://www.walkhighlands.co.uk/Forum/viewtopic.php?f=1&t=16869https://www.walkhighlands.co.uk/Forum/viewtopic.php?f=31&t=99574Creagan a' Chaise - 10.96km, 473m ascent, 2hrs 52mins.I was dispatched by work to the Cairngorms for a second site visit in September, and hopefully this time the haze of 7th September would be gone. I had to climb Cairn Gorm later in the day - a repeat of a 2015 climb, annoyingly for me - but maybe there would just about be time to extend the walk to Macdui. But first, I had to head to the Hills of Cromdale and climb Creagan a' Chaise.
When you wake up and the sky looks like this, there's no better feeling.
It was a long old drive to the farmhouses at Lynemore (three full hours), but at least when I arrived at 9:15am I'd bagged a head start of about 1,000ft. And the sky was now the purest blue I think I've ever seen.
It was basically guaranteed to be a great day.
If this is the worst ford of the day, then we should be good to go.
The grouse track headed Northeast towards Aultcharn then wove its way up onto Carn Tuairneir. I had agonised about which route to take, as Creagan a' Chaise doesn't seem to have one all-powerful trade route. But eventually I settled on Lynemore as the starting point, to get up and down by lunchtime and head up to the Cairngorm Ski Centre.
Aha! Just over an hour after leaving Lynemore, the massive Jubilee Cairn reappeared as I skirted round the Northern edge of Carn Tuairneir. There are a few fainter tracks that lead on from here towards the final steep little pull towards the summit.
The last 10-20m are comically steep - maybe the Hills of Cromdale are one small part of a larger fault line?
Bingo. 1hr 25mins after leaving, Creagan a' Chaise was summitted. And there's a trig point to balance the camera on for the landscape photography - lucky me! Wasn't taking a tripod up here, no thanks, apologies to my boss.
Great views opened up towards Càrn a'Ghille Chearr (the other, slightly smaller, Fiona in the Hills of Cromdale) and Ben Rinnes.
It would be a great hill range to plot out a traverse, especially if you were using transport. But needs must on a site visit, so it was straight back down the same way to find the grouse track and scarper back down to Lynemore.
I got the fright of my life when three massive dogs sprinted towards me near the Allt Chuirn, threatening to take my head off. Eventually the owner appeared, kind of sauntering up and looking a bit non-plussed by the situation.
"Oh...sorry?", she posited,
"I've never passed any walkers going this way." I mean, that's a point? Creagan a' Chaise has multiple routes and maybe Lynemore isn't the most scintillating approach. But you must know there's always a chance of meeting someone? The way she framed it was a little bit like saying,
"well, it's kinda your fault for picking a weird route lol".
(The dogs themselves reminded me of the bit when Alan Partridge is pretending that's he good friends with Bono, and warns his girlfriend about the dogs on Bono's estate:
"They are trained, and they are very right wing!" )
After scarpering back to the layby, and taking a long and windy drive down the B970 through Nethy Bridge and Coylumbridge, I finally had lunch at the entrance to the ski centre car park. I panicked when I arrived and saw the car park has charges now (I'm sure it didn't in 2015, but then 2015 was 8,000 years ago). In hindsight I probably could have got it on expenses, but loads of people had parked at a long rough layby on the road verge outside, so I just copied them and found a space further down. Much further down.
In retrospect, this was so cheap it would hardly even have needed expenses. But I still never know if places will take card/contactless, and anyway, I'm a cheapskate.
Cairn Gorm - 13.60km, 828m ascent, 5hrs 43mins.The time was leaving 1:20pm as I clambered out of the car and back up to the proper car park. Sunset was pencilled in for c.7:15pm, so I had less than six hours to climb Cairn Gorm, detour all the way South to Macdui and get back to the ski centre. Macdui wasn't actually part of my shift, but I was desperate to finally climb it. I've still never climbed Nevis or Macdui, and before I got roped into another site visit I was strongly considering getting the Citylink to Fort William and attempting Nevis (there seems to be *just* enough of a window between buses?)
The views were incredible in the sunshine but, as soon as I started up the ski road, I just wasn't feeling it. Maybe it was because double hillwalks are a huge problem for me psychologically (I'd had a triple hillwalk with Morven / Ladylea Hill / Cairnagour Hill, and never even made it to Mona Gowan in the end). But the longer this went on, and the slower I got, I started to wonder if the problem was... the ski road itself?
Nice accidental advert for Bluesky, the only social media platform not run by terrible human beings.
I had been going for 50 minutes, and was still absolutely nowhere near Ptarmigan Restaurant, let alone the summit. I figured I would have to summit (and probably take all the photos) by about 3pm, then leg it to Macdui for 5pm, then try and get back to at least the rough vicinity of the ski centre by 7pm. But it was already 2:10pm, and if anything I was getting slower. This road was really dusty too.
Then I started getting overtaken by diggers and stuff.
A second one went by as I was taking another seat (utterly exhausted in the heat) in roughly the same bit of shade at the side of the road. It was already a bad route psychologically, up through all the ski paraphernalia, and now I was getting lapped by construction trucks. This could be a long afternoon.
Can only reiterate that the views here were phenomenal, but I wasn't in the right headspace to appreciate them. Macdui was fading, fast.
Oh another one.
This one actually looked angry, from memory. They really hared up the hill, and I think they shouted something as they broke sharply at the top. Were they bellowing at me? Am I going to fail to reach a Munro thanks to a road rage incident?
And a fifth one, just to complete the set. This one was going downhill, which weirdly wasn't so bad for the old psyche.
Ptarmigan Restaurant was a mess when I finally lumbered up to it and took a bonus round of photos, a full 1hr 30mins after leaving. At least that explains all the construction vehicles. I popped in there in 2015 and got overcharged for a puffin (not a real puffin), but no danger of that happening today - the place was a building site.
Finally - sheepishly - over 2hrs after passing through the ski centre car park, I summitted Cairn Gorm. In 2015 it took 1hr 25mins, and that was going up the ridge of Fiacaill a' Choire Chais. Should I just have taken that path again? Or was it just the fatigue that comes with a double hillwalk? I figured the ski centre road had to be the quickest way by default, but in the end it was hideous.
There was no trig point here, randomly, so I just sat on a rock and tried to keep the camera as level as possible for the landscape photography (i.e. paid) bit. Here is the view back to the Hills of Cromdale and Ben Rinnes. It really does look like a fault line from here.
Probably no Norway view to the East today - it's high pressure, but not *that* high that I could see 350 miles round the curvature of the Earth. But there were at least great views to Bennachie, Morven and Ben Avon.
Dark Lochnagar appeared to the Southeast.
The German viewfinder site tells me there's a gap in the hills that leaves a view all the day down to Windlestraw Law, 165km away. But annoyingly, the weather station got in the way. I could see the Ochils in this shot though, just over 100km away.
Stob Binnein and Ben More both appeared through a gap to the right of Ben Macdui (which *clearly* wasn't happening today).
Ben Lui also fitted nicely in one of the gaps.
A great view through to Beinn a' Bheithir (my nemesis...
) and Ben Nevis.
The same view but with the proper camera. Sgurr na Ciche has appeared over to the right.
Didn't pick up on this time at the time, but it looks like Slioch is visible here, and at least one of the Liathach summits are poking up - both c.120km from Cairn Gorm.
They're very, *very* faint without the zoom, but Conival, Ben More Assynt and Ben Klibreck all showed up here (132-135km).
And back round to the North, Morven (the Caithness one) was clear as day.
The time had already left 4pm, so Ben Macdui was officially cancelled.
No new Munros for me today, although at least there was one new Fiona. But there was still some time left, and the weather was maybe the best I've ever had on the hills. So there might just be time to extend the walk West along the two bonus Tops at the Northern Corries. And also I never want to see that ski centre road as long as I live.
The path was obvious enough, after a really tricky descent from Cairn Gorm to the first col on dodgy scree. I don't remember this being a bad spot in 2015, but then I was heading uphill that day.
Ok this is better than the ski road now.
The route led to the Top of Stob Coire an t-Sneachda, with incredible views down to Loch Morlich.
A helicopter flew Northwest over the corries. As ever, hope it was just a training exercise.
Here, this bit of the Cairngorms is absolutely amazing tbf. Never really researched it, as I've still not been to the Cairngorms much and I would prioritise Munros over Tops every day of the week. But the views here were unbelievable.
Cairn Lochan has two summit cairns. I think the second one is higher, but the path leads past both of them.
Blimey.
The path led down to the Northwest and headed towards the Macdui path, before crossing stepping stones just before the junction.
The light had been amazing all day, but with the time approaching 6pm the shadows added an extra something to it.
Random bit of light that looks a bit like a rainbow.
I finally lumbered down to the car just after 7pm, so only beat sunset by about 10-15 minutes, but the Macdui path is great, so if I'd had to go a few minutes after official sunset I think it would've been fine.
A brief stop at Loch Morlich to gaze at the Northern Corries again.
Khan Babas in Pitlochry saves the day again! I went round Aviemore looking for somewhere, but everything seemed to be closed or expensive. I even texted my boss at one point (who is an Aviemore expert tbf), who recommended Smiffy's the chip shop, but it was closed for two weeks for staff holidays.
"Where have you been, then?"It was disappointing to miss out on Ben Macdui, but it was still an incredible day. Without the haze of two weeks earlier the views were infinitely better and, while I maybe missed out on
"the Norway view" (
), there was still an amazing view across swathes of the country, from the Ochils to Ben More Assynt via Ben Lui, Bennachie and Liathach. All we need is for Khan Babas to open an Aviemore branch and that's the Cairngorms perfected...
