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Car temperature got down to -5 on the drive to Braemar, so winter's definitely on the way. Cycled in from the Linn of Dee, crossed the White Bridge then took the path immediately to the right. Gets a bit tricker by bike from here as the path is narrower and broken up by drainage ditches. Stashed the bike near the Allt Iarnaidh and ascended from here, I read Alastair S's report where he continued on the path and went up at the Allt Garbh but this looked more direct.
Back along the path:
Allt Iarnaidh, path goes to the left on the other side of the stream.
Bit boggy at the start and looks like I'm getting low cloud today, over to Carn a'Mhaim:
River Dee down there on the right:
Up and into the cloud.
Carn Cloich-mhuilinn cairn - Hugh Munro was apparently keeping this one till last but never made it, it stopped being a Munro in 1981.
Navigation got a bit tricky in the cloud after this, I ended up just following the GPS. Bhrotain is a couple of hundred metres higher than Carn Cloich-mhuilinn so it was a wee bit cooler up here.
Steve Fallon said the descent from Bhrotain was a pink boulder field, just snow today.
Got down to the bealach between Bhrotain and Monadh Mor, I would be returning here and descending down the steep ground to the right, hmm...looks a bit tricky in the snow.
Then up to Monadh Mor, slope eased off once on the plateau around 1100m however this means you spend more time at high level, it gets a bit breezy and the temperature drops to Baltic. Cairn:
Back to the bealach and the steepish descent, snow had blown into the corrie below so it was deeper here.
Sort of fell through the snow at the cornice (in a controlled manner of course
), looking back up:
Then continued down on the right hand side of the burn, crossed a few other snow-covered streams on the way resulting in a wet boot. Once out of the snow it was a bit muddy and heathery in places, eventually found a faint path. In Glen Geusachan now, Devil's Point on the left:
Shiny Devil's Point out of the cloud now.
Quite a long trek back to the bike.
Alternative path to Bhrotain at Allt Garbh.
Last look at Bhrotain.
