2 Munros 2 Hours (Touche)

[tomyboy73]

I had a wee job to do up in Aberdeen that involved driving back down the road via the Cairnwell Pass. Dunno, bad road the other way or something. It was a lovely day and with the previous few days throwing out inversions all over the place. I couldn`t resist a wee lunch break up on the hills to see what it would bring. It was a beautiful drive through Aboyne, Ballater and Braemar. Copper coloured roadside hedges turned to frost covered trees the further west I went. The temperature dropped to -5, but the sun still scorched my face.
I parked up at the Ski Centre and headed up the path. I had read all the guff about how horrible it is with all the ski lifts and buildings, but so what ?

heading up Carn Aosda

These Munros may start about 600 metres but it felt really steep and my heart was punding. I encountered a large patch of snow and as I only had an old pair of cheap trail shoes on, I slipped (make that stretched and pulled) on an odd pair of Yaktraks my wife bought for herself and the kids that bad winter a few years ago. They worked well and I wore them further on up the hill off the snow before taking them off before I ruined them. I saw the sign ..and it opened up my mind..I saw the sign. Not many signs on the hills are there ?

Carn Aosda sign, The Cairnwell hill

So, I thought , another ten, fifteen minutes or so eh ? Two minutes later I was on top !
Not before scaring two Ptarmigan away first though.

Ptwo Ptarmigan

It was a bit breezy on the way up. But on top ? **** me , it was Baltic ! And my hair was all over the place !

New hairstyle

My plan was to just climb this one, have a bite to eat and head back. But 1. it had only taken 25 minutes. 2. It was **** freezin. 3. I could see a cloud inversion further south.
so I headed off towards The Cairnwell, masts, huts and all.
The wind eased as I dropped height , but it didn`t stop the bloody Grouse springing up from nowhere and screaming that mad scream they do.
I passed a pretty loch which looked frozen.

Loch Vrotachan

If you look closely at this picture you will see a fleeing Grouse.
The path is really stoney and sometimes I got a sharp shock when I stood on a rather pointy rock. But I carried on regardless...
The wonderful site of stainless steel was now within my grasp and I hauled myself up the final steep climb.
And yes it was windy ! I had a look around and made my way along to the viewpoint away from the towers and sheds, like everybody else i imagine and plonked myself down and pretended it wasn`t there.
My first inversion, Magic. Over an area with no mountains.

inversion up ahead

northern gorms

But at least I had clear blue skies and had nice views for miles.

hairband keeping it all in check

I sat and ate my sandwiches until my hands were red raw. This took about five minutes, before I packed up and headed back down.
As I got to the top of one of the ski slopes I decided to head down that way. There were still plenty of snow patches and I went for a bum slide. I had left my waterproofs at home as it was January. I didn`t slide very far so I got out my big orange survival bag. I saw on the news recently how this could save your life. So yeah, this was a life or death situation.
I kept it folded up and sat on it so that if it got too fast i could just whip it out from underneath me. The patches were broken up a bit so I didn`t go down in a oner but I must have descended that hill in about 5 minutes