Our annual three day trip to Scotland.
The forecast did not look great at all for the Wednesday with the best chance of clarity being in the East. With this in mind we headed for Glen Muick where - after kindly being allowed through the closed A93 by the road workers - we arrived at 11pm to set up camp and a quick can before bed.
A cold night and not much sleep saw us head to the Spittal of Glenmuick car park to set off at 7am.
Simple and easy path up between Lochnagar and Conachcraig before taking the clear path branching off for the Corbett. At this point it looked like a dodgy day with cloud over the tops and rain beginning to pour over Lochnagar itself.
- Start of the path - clear paths right around this one
- Meikle Pap and Lochnagar in view - looks like being a good day
- Heading up Conachcraig and the weather still looks decent
- But looking back to Lochnagar tells a different story - fortunately this was a passing shower and we would have clear summits for the rest of the trip!
- Conachcriag summit
The route up Lochnagar was then easy enough with the best views of the day being gained from the mountains grand cliffs. The strong winds made it incredibly cold for the time of year up there and I found myself zipping on my trouser bottoms and getting my hat and gloves out of the bag.
- Lochnagar cliffs
- Nearing the top
- Trig Point
With a lot of the hard work done the rest of the work was an easy promenade around the White Mounth ticking off four more Munros. Once we got onto the Cairn Bannoch arm the wind was no longer in our faces and we felt much warmer.
- Cairn a'Choire Bhoidheach summit looking to Lochnagar
- Route to Carn an t-Sagairt Mor
- Carn an t-Sagairt Mor summit
- Cairn Bannoch ahead - warmer now.
- Cairn Bannoch summit looking to Eagles Rock
- Broad Cairn ahead
- And the Cairngorms behind!
- Loch Muick from Broad Cairn
There seemed to be two options for getting down from here - a high road and a low road - but with the wind still biting our choice was made easy and we went for the track heading down to the shores of Loch Muick.
This turned out to be a terrific path and it was a long (and at times undulating) stroll back to the car park along the shores of the Loch.
- Descending to Loch Muick
- Looking back at Broad Cairn
- Track beside Loch Muick - popular with walkers just doing a circuit of the Loch
- Conachcraig
A nice route this with good paths meaning that the miles feel fairly easy and the gradients not too bad at all. The last 4 Munro's particularly are a very straightforward exercise.
