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This walk was iniated by Gary (backpacker) and the plan was to start off nice and early - 8am
Gary had decided to spend the night in his comfy car rather than drive cross country at the crack of dawn, I however prefer to sleep in my really luxurious bed and then get up in the middle of the night
I had set the alarm for 5am, but as usual my body clock decided to wake me up at 4.30am, so I was on the road by 5am
My main concern with driving at sunrise is deer, as my experience with the local constabulary taught me that the worst time for road accidents involving deer is either sunrise or sunset. So a safety first drive north with hardly any traffic was pretty non eventful & I only saw one deer & that was near Kincraig
I arrived at the car park at Auchlean rather early (just before 7am) and I could see Gary was still in the land of nod with his windows a wee bit steamed up
As soon as I opened the car door everyones favourite eating machines appeared, it was almost as if they were waiting for me to arrive
Gary surfaced and after a really healthy breakfast of a packet of fags, a couple of tins of something fizzy and some fruit
We were going to wait till 8am to see if anyone else was going to appear but the midges were obviously wanting a tasty breakfast too
So at 7.30am we set off leaving the midges behind to attack the next victim
I won't describe the route as it is well documented, suffice to say that we set off along the tarmac road before turning left & heading uphill.
The weather was OK, we could see bits of cloud sitting at maybe 2500' and the forecast was good with only 10% chance of rain
As we trudged up the never ending well constructed path towards Carn Ban Mor, every time we stopped purely for photographic purposes we discussed the weather ahead, we knew we were going to venturing into the clag before we reached the top of the path
- View from the car park of my car aerial and bits of low cloud floating around
- The way ahead
- The well constructed path with the heather looking nice and colourful
- Gary having a close look at the low cloud ahead
- Looking back, bits of cloud & sunshine elsewhere
As we neared the top of the path, I noticed 2 individuals heading uphill in the distance, Gary had to take my word for it as he leaves his glasses in the car and can only see things a couple of yards in front (only joking Gary)
After crossing the River Eidart the 2 chaps were alot closer and I had a feeling that the 2nd one could be John (jupe1407) as he had a pale blue jacket on & was waving
So we decided to wait & after a quick chat and introductions we decided to walk as a foursome. The first guy was Kevin (kev-dameekat) who admitted to being "a lurker" on WH and turned out to be great company
The River Eidart was easy to cross unlike the next wet obstacle Allt Luinneag. When we reached the Allt Luinneag a short time later we wandered upstream to see if there was a possibilty of a crossing without taking the plunge, however after much deliberating we decided there was nothing for it but to have a paddle
- Allt Luinneag - what no bridge!
- Allt Luinneag down stream
No photo's were taken of this paddling experience, you will have to wait for the 2nd crossing
One thing I will stress and that is that the water was absolutely freezing. Gary & I had flip flops, whereas John & Kevin were "real men" and paddled across barefooted
The next part of the walk was pretty non descript, across the boggy ground, then it was a boulder field and onto the large plateau of Monadh Mor.
- Can't remember the name of this summit - queue Kevin, who pointed his phone at the summit and his phone is that clever that it displayed the name of the summit!!
- Zoom into same summit
Kevin will add his comment later & tell us the name of the "APP"
- Typical Cairngorm scenery
- Devils Point
- Zoom into Devils Point
The summit of Monadh Mor was not very exciting, in fact I can't have been impressed as I didn't take any photo's
- The way down & then up to Beinn Bhrotain
- The view SSW, note all the standing water after the recent spell of inclement weather
- One of quite a few rainbows that appeared
- Lunch time on the top of Beinn Bhrotain
- A little feathered friend who was looking for a free lunch
Anyone able to identify the little bird? Unfortunately none of us are 'twitchers' and we knew that someone would be able to assist
There were two main topics that kept spirits up on the trek back, firstly was how inaccurate the forecast had been, we got battered quite a few times by hailstones
The other was trying to forecast what time we would arrive back at the cars
Our first estimate was 4pm but that was before we encountered the boulder field on the way down and before the river crossing, it turned out we arrived back at 5.15pm, so we were rather optimistic
As we were crossing the lower slopes of the boulder field we could see 3 persons on the other side of the river wandering up and down the bank looking for a crossing point, next thing they turned round and headed back uphill
Now for the photo's of the river crossing, unfortunately I didn't take any selfies whilst crossing
I just wanted to get across as soon as possible
John volunteered to cross first, followed by Kevin, Gary & finally me
- John decided to keep his boots on - midstream
- Kevin amusingly slipped down the bank, ended up with a slightly damp rear end
- Kevin putting on a brave face and looking for the audience
- Cold feet Kevin?
- John took so long to cross that I managed to take 18 photo's, he must have really enjoyed it?
- Gary testing the temperature by putting his big toe in first
- Gary showing off his expensive foot wear
- Trouser malfunction, unfortunately no spare hands
Unfortunately no more photo's can be attached
The walk back was a real slog, uphill initially until the crossroads is reached, then it was the never ending descent down the path
As we reached the lower slopes of the path and were just drying out, yet another shower appeared, but after the earlier batterings it felt like warm rain
Luckily we still had our waterproof (ish) jackets on, mainly because we couldn't be bothered to stop & take them off
The final straw of bad luck was the midges were ready and waiting for us when we got back to the cars, so there was no taking ones boots off slowly
Now for the drive home down the A9, everyone's favourite road
You will all be pleased to hear that the camera's have now crept up past Kingussie, albeit not recording yet. What a complete & utter waste of money
Another great day, with great company, with great scenery
What's next?
Edit - sorry for being a muppet, yet again forgot to add a map
The return leg was exactly the same
