Walkhighlands

This was the last of three cracking days in the Glen Shee area and with a perfect weather forecast for the afternoon, we felt able to take our time working through all that the hotel breakfast menu had to offer.

We parked on the roadside verge on the A93 beside a white gate and small wood. With so much snow, there was limited space for the van, but we needn't have worried about finding a parking spot given that the rest of the world seemed to be heading to a packed Glenshee ski centre.




Such was the depth of the snow that we were able to jump straight out of the van and straight into the snow shoes, and what light work they made of the snowy conditions on the track up the glen.

The old bridge has now been replaced which meant a wonderful stroll up the glen to the end of the track some 7km away.



This is where the work started as we headed right up the hillside. Although hard going with such deep snow, it did mean that we were walking over the top of the boggy, heather clad hillside passing the snow covered grouse butts.





Although the last couple of hundred metres got the heart pumping, we were at the skyline in no time, and were rewarded with 360 deg of amazing views. It was hard to drag ourselves from the top but conscious that the sun would be going down in 3hrs time, we dragged ourselves away.





Celebrating Munro No 200



From the summit we dropped down to about 750m and contoured round to Socach Mor with its rather prominent cairn. With hindsight it would have been easier to walk from the summit back across the plateau to East top and then make the descent to Socach Mor, from where the descent back to the track (2km from Baddoch) is really straightforward.

Cracking winter route