Man versus Midge
Posted: Sun Aug 14, 2011 4:22 pm
This was it,first wild camp ,first visit to the Cairngorms and first battle with the midge.Set of on friday night for linn o dee and headed for the corrour bothy at 7 pm,this was a bit late as the walk in took 3 hours and we had to pitch the tents in the dark the wind and the rain(bothy heaving) Never mind and after getting aboot 3 hours kip it was up early to get walking,set off up the devil's point at about half 7 not hanging about at the tents for long as the midges were attacking us big time. The big plan was to tackle the devil's point,cairn toul ,angel's peak and braeriach on saturday and carn a mhaim ,macdui and derry cairngorm on sunday ,this plan was soon binned after we realised how long the walk out was going to be
Got to the top quite quickly and the views at the top were great ,this would soon change We could see over to ben macdui and the path we would take up cairn toul was also clear but this wouldn't last and we spent most of the day in clag. Clambered our way up to cairn toul got the summit pics taken (2 cairns here is the highest the one that is built like shelter?)and didn't hang around long before heading to the angel's peak Again never hung around long and headed to braeriach,enjoyed this part of the walk the cloud would break now and again and we could make out the sheer drops and buttreses on our way round the coire a couple of guys who were doing the same route in reverse took our picture on braeriach and we would meet them later in the bothy ,then it was time to find a way back down to the lairig ghru and back to basecamp,found quite a few bits of aircraft wreckage on the hillside It cleared up a bit on the way down the pass and we got some decent views of where we had just been Back to the bothy at half 3 and had a blether with the folks who came and went ,drank all our beer and whiskey and slept much better than the night before Sunday and we woke early and began to get packed up.I used to think people made midges out to be worse than the really are but now i ken better likes,trying to pack the tent up was a nightmare ,swarming all over us driving us mad we legged it quick as we could and began the 8 mile hike back to linn o dee.We we were just on our way when someone came up with the bright idea of shooting up carn a mhaim ,no sure ian was to keen on this but we dumped our bags behind some rocks and made our way up the steep heather then clambered up the rocks and were soon at the top The bit extra effort was worth it as the views from here were great All that left now was the wee hike back to the car park ,never quite managed our target of 7 hills but enjoyed most of the whole camping out in the wilds thing except the evil that is the midge,i am now off for a good scratch and to order one off them head net things from the interweb