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Please excuse me for my English, I'm just an 18 year old Belgian.This is the first day of a three day hike in the Cairngorms with five other friends. I decided to write this report to help people like me, who are planning their first trip in Scotland/ The Cairngorms. To plan this trip I read a lot of reports and they were really helpful, so I felt that I had to write one too.
We headed out of Aviemore at around 9:30 after arriving with the caledonian sleeper from London Euston and doing some shopping for gas cartridges that fitted our campingaz stoves.
The way to Balvattan was pretty self explanatory. After that we lost the way a bit and we went through some heather to Lochan Deo. The views from the heath at Balvattan were very nice.
My friend Kevin posing in the heathThe way to Lochan DeoAt the Lochan we had a little rest and we saw some English guys about our age who we had previously seen in Aviemore, they were headed the same way we were.
Lochan DeoThe path from Lochan Deo to the entrance of Glen Einich was fabulous. We couldn't lose the way because the path was very clear and in a very good condition.
Am Beanaidh at the entrance of Glen EinichAm Beanaidh At the entrance of Glen Einich we took our lunchbreak.
We continued our journey while playing word games and singing songs from The Lord Of The Rings and The Hobbit.
In the distance we saw the four English guys taking their lunch break. We crossed some mountainbikers who headed back.
The path was still good but in some places there was some mudThere were some nice bridges as wellAnd some nice fordsThe view into the glen, Sgoran Dubh Mor in the distanceWouter crossing another nice bridgeFinally we arrived at the Loch at around 14:30. This was way earlier than we expected. We set up our tents and explored a bit. The English guys arrived about two hours later I think. In the meantime the weather became worse and there was a fierce wind. The four guys tried to set up their big tent but it wasn't really working so we decided to help them. While putting up their tent we learned they were from London. Their tent wasn't really good quality (Decathlon) and one of the plastic poles broke because there was to much wind. They decided to head back to Aviemore ( this wasn't the last time we would see them, more about that in my following reports).
Afterwards it started raining and we sheltered in our tents. When it looked that it had stopped raining we made something to eat (actually we boiled some water because we had MRE's). The water didn't want to boil because the wind blew the heat away. We waited very long and tried our best to block the wind but in the end we ate our MRE's without boiling water.
After our evening meal we played some games and went to sleep.
I hope my English wasn't too bad and the report was a bit helpful. There will be more reports when I find some time to write them. Next one:
viewtopic.php?f=9&t=78550Some views from the head of the loch.A waterfall on the side of Einich CairnGlen trying to get some phone signalAlec and me testing our waterfilters
