My thanks to J888ohn for his route description of the 'Cairngorms Circuit'. Tried to stick to it, but as you can see, went a bit off piste at points.
This is what transpired…
0500: Up from my SYHA Aviemore bed to quietly step outside into corridor with gear, get dressed. Sorry fellow hostellers, but the sun waits for no man. Breakfast: 2 x butteries with substandard apricot jam, 1 x banana, 1 x coffee style hot drink (regretted that). Flask, water bottles filled, rolls packed. Car packed.
0600: Depart for Ski Centre car park. Tunes playing from tape deck to get blood flowing (tape adaptor thing for phone to play through).
0630: Await sufficient light. Boot up.
0700: Head off.
- Looking back towards ski centre.
- Looking across to the Fiacaill Ridge.
- Sron na Lairige catching the first rays.
- Looking down the Lairig Ghru.
- First drop of sun.
- Saw someone else do this in a post, shadow portrait, looked cool. Amazingly long shadows.
- Think that's Cairn Toul, Angel's Peak, start of the ascent to Braeriach?
- 0900: Ben Macdui. All to myself. Emotional.
- One minute later, man and dog arrive. Exchange pleasantries with man, pat dog. Good to share it in a way, just to know that someone else is seeing this amazingness. Plus he gave my photo some scale.
- Looking across to Derry Cairngorm, pointy.
- Loch Etchachan. Think I caught the moon in that shot too.
- Tors of Beinn Mheadhoin coming into view. That sky! Can't believe this is Scotland!
- Some nice wind carved stone bowl things, I believe is the technical term.
- 1045: After the scramble to the top (and I'm not a scrambler), wanted photographic evidence. First serious wind chill of the day.
- First view of Loch Avon. Should've studied the route out more closely from here.
- First visit to the Shelter Stone. Next time taking a black bin bag. Who are these people that leave sh*t in there? Slightly marred the day.
- Beach.
So this is where things went slightly awry. Apparently the path out of Dodge goes up the right of this Allt Coire Raibeirt.
- Allt Coire Raibeirt.
But it seemed to disappear after a few metres, after which I improvised, going more directly north away from the stream. It wasn't pretty, or sensible, but got the heart pumping. Has anyone done this properly? Where did I go wrong?
Got to a wee cairn at 1082 then made a B-line for Cairn Gorm, last Munro of the day.
- 1400: All this blue sky's getting a bit boring. It's just not natural!
- Classic camera phone over exposed panorama… Really need a proper camera.
To round the day off, made a hash of getting down from Ptarmigan Station. In my eagerness to avoid the ski lifts, ended up over shooting the ski centre and suffering the indignity of having to walk uphill on the road as cars passed leaving for the day.
- Heading back uphill to ski centre.
1523: Arrive back at car.
Still, nothing could wreck what was an utterly amazing day. Having suffered the disappointment of several claggy days trying to see these places, I was primed for this. The only thing that hurt more than my feet was my face from smiling all day.
). I put my photos on my blog at 
). As brocoli says, the path follows the river pretty much all the way. At one point it gets really close to the river along a rocky section, which can easily be mistaken for the river bank, or part of the river if the stream is full. On the way up you could see where people had tried to climb up the slope to the right of that point. Didn't look like an appealing route....
. Really glad you got to see the top.
