An Socach

[gary]

Had been planning to do a walk with with Taylor94 for a while now but unfortunatley work commitments meant we had to keep postponing it. However I was off work all weekend and the weather forecast looked reasonable for Sunday so we made plans for a walk.I had hoped to have a shot at the Glas Moal circuit but with the clocks changing I knew we must get an early start for this so when Taylor94 informed me he could not meet until 10.30 I had to rethink and as An Socach was closer to our meeting point at Banchory and had a few hours less advised time on it we opted for this.
I set off at 9.30 with Ruby my dog and stopped off to pick up Corrie, my parents dog en-route, I arrived at Banchory about 10.20 and Taylor94 arrived a few minutes later with his partner Rebecca who decided to give her first munro a go.
We arrived at the parking area at 11.15, a little later than i hoped as I was wanting top be walking for no later than eleven! The weather was decent, a little breezy but quite mild with a fair bit of cloud.
We set off and made good time along the track past the house, over the stile then the bridge where we could see a few folk heading back but also some not to far in front going out. When we reached the ford it looked a bit swollen to cross, so we headed up the side of the burn looking for a route across, I think it might happen a lot nowadays because there is a path on both sides. A few other people seemed to be in the same predicament and I believe Liethysuburbs was there but just ploughed through at the track. We decided on jumping across a few rocks and managed over with relative ease.
There is a small path up after the burn and it rises qiute steeply although it was very boggy. We reached the first cairn and decided to stop for 5 mins. The summit looked to be in the clouds at this stage.

Towards the summit from the first cairn

We continued on the very boggy path and reached the steepest part of the walk, I think Rebecca was struggling a bit with this part, we took a while from here and time was getting on, I was getting a bit concerned and did not fancy descending this part in the dark, after a short disscusion it was decided that Rebecca would stay and wait for us there and Darren and I would continue to the summit as quickly as we could. We thought we were there after about 10 minutes but after consulting my map and guide we realised the large windshelter we had reached was not the summit after all!
It was difficult to see in any direction so we had to trust our navigation and headed west.

Windshelter Cairn and thats about all we could see

.
There was a distictive path which we followed at quite a speed, every time there was any ascent I was thinking this must be it but on arrival could see a higher point further along which we kept heading for and eventually reaching after about three times thinking we were there but the fact the cairns were small suggested otherwise. When we did reach what we believe to be the summit we only stopped for a few photos as the cloud was quite thick and daylight was limited plus Rebecca was sitting on her own.

View from edge of summit

me and the dogs at small cairn on summit

We headed back the way we came and were back with Rebecca soon after, we headed down a bit then stopped for a quick bite to eat. There was only about an hour or so of daylight left so we tried to push on as quick as we could, as long as we got across the stream before dark I felt we would be o.k as the track from there back is decent and the only danger would be walking in a puddle but by the time it did get dark we were passed the house and only had a five minutes or so to the car so there was no need for the torches.
Having read Taylor94s report there seems to be a bit of doubt as to whether we were at the summit or not so I have posted a few more pics so maybe someone could confirm whether we made it or not?

Small windshelter cairn where a couple stopped for lunch perhaps

Looking north if I remember correctly

[LeithySuburbs]

I can happily report that you definitely made it .

[gary]

Thanks Leithy, bit of a relief, would have felt like a bit of a plonker had I found out I went all that way and never made the summit for the sake of another 10 mins walk!

[NickyRannoch]

Well done lads thats a definite tick

the lovely photo of loch nan eun confirms it.

[Johnny Corbett]

Yip conformation you both made the summit, well done again