Ben Aigan - A Moray Marylin

[gyles]

A friend of mine had a visitor from Glasgow for the weekend who is keen on getting started into a bit of hillwalking. January may not have been ideal for anything overly high with most ranges covered with snow, so we picked something lower and a bit closer to home - Ben Aigan.

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I avoided going for the direct route up and down the summit from the car park, I wanted to make a bit more of a walk. The plan was to start at the forestry commission car park and head north to skirt round the side of Knock More. Conditions was cold, just above freezing, the sky did give us a bit of sleet as it tried to snow but nothing came of it.

The 6 of us made good pace, reaching round the north side fairly quick.

Looking north, the River Spey flows out to the Moray Firth.

Terrain was easy with the well constructed forestry tracks, some places were a bit mucky/muddy with a little logging on the north side. There wasn't much climbing at this point, we were simply contour following round.

We continued round onto the west side heading south, also joining onto part of the Speyside Way, long distance trail. The original plan was to cut off to the left and head onto the track heading east which made us reach the summit... but we missed it

Well we did see it but we thought it was a bike trail, of which there is 3-4 of them around this summit. So we accidentally bypassed the path and continued south. After another 30 minutes walking we realised what we done. We had 2 options, return the way we came and take the path we missed or look for a fire break taking us east and uphill to the summit, we took the latter and boy was it hard going.

Very wet and boggy it was hard work getting through the break which took a good hour until it lead us to a bike trail which was much easier to walk along. The trail then took us north as we climbed the summit from the south, we finally made our way up.

The summit

Looking south at Little Conval

Ben Rinnes shrowded in cloud

View on the west side down to Rothes

Very chilly and breezy at the top we didn't hang about for more than 10 minutes. We took the forest trail back down to the car park, returning after about 5 hours.

Was a good day out even with the extra diversion.

[The Rodmiester]

Hi 'giles', sounds like a good day out, apart from the firebreak climb, which can be tough going as I have learnt. Pity the sky wasn't a bit clearer as it looks like the view from the top could be really nice. Something I will think about the next time I'm up in that area.

[Johnny Corbett]

Looked at walking this hill many times, will get around to it one day

[gyles]

Hi 'giles', sounds like a good day out, apart from the firebreak climb, which can be tough going as I have learnt. Pity the sky wasn't a bit clearer as it looks like the view from the top could be really nice. Something I will think about the next time I'm up in that area.

Hi Rod, certainly was a good day out even with the added difficulties. I did feel a bit annoyed with myself for missing the turning. There was 2 guys with us who are taking an interest into the walking and I hoped I didn't put them off coming back for more.

The view was reasonably good, the cloud didn't give too much trouble however I would love to give this walk another go again in nicer weather with I'm sure clearer views.