Three Grahams and four trig points.

[Benaden887]

Buck 721m 4km. 310m. 1.30h The 23/02/19
Yesterday saw a midday repeat of The Buck from my same start point on the B9002 @NJ421251.
Weather sunny and dry but with a cold facing wind. 4 months since my last outing so looking for some easy ticks that I can chew on. Gear up, cross grass for the Dry Knoll, skirt a reed bed for the border fence with the going now wetter from pools and streams of melted snow. Above 500m.on steeper ground the way improves somewhat. Over this to find the rocky tor and trig point of what the locals call -The Buck o the Cabrach, some name. Great views over an undulating moorland, S lie the Northern Cairngorms. N, a wind farm and forestry clearing, the hills around me bound by brown/ grey heather grouse slopes. My last time here it was hard to discern anything but a merging of colours as dusk began to fall. A gust of wind nearly makes it a much shorter day as I'm forced to grab onto the Trig block for support. Another look around, then down climb from the tor for a speedy descent to the car and a break.

Carn Glas- choire 13km. 400m. 3.30h 24/02/16
Park 300m S on the B9007 at a forest entrance. Looks like another section of wind farm scheduled for here. Still dark as I gear up, then walk to NM929261 signpost for Auchterteang. A good track wends from here and winds after 6km up to a broad plateau on the Dava hills. Welcome to grouse country. Hundreds of them. Past the keepers house and noisy dog kennels, a newly fenced area with young trees to a green hut for a look see and here I met a mountain hare. Thought at first it was a rabbit as it ran ahead of me until it stopped, stood up on his hind legs stretch out his front paws in boxing mode, so did his ears now pop out. I followed him uphill, until the turn for Carn Mheadhoin where we parted company, he possibly looking for a mate. A backward look in daylight now sees the other glens beyond mine wreathed in fingers of cloud. Awesome.
The walk to the top is easy enough and suited me for I'd another Graham to climb after this. Reaching the watershed I follow ATV tracks across peat and scrub heather to some walls, large cairn with trig point.The
air is fresh and cold. I take a break and a swallow, then return across rough ground for my inward route and
an easy walk to the car. seen enroute, The hare, still white, umteen grouse, frog spawn and a man from Inverness doing my hill “just out for a stroll- cannot believe how cold it is.”

Carn nan Tri- tighearrnan 9km. 400m. 3.30h 24/02/19

I had given much thought on how to climb this one, torn between the Moy route by bike or a newly made
track up the Meur Tuath above Drynachan lodge. In the end being I was closer I drove to Dulsie bridge,
(worth a visit) for Dalness farm believing ifn the Panther had managed to get there at last, then the road/ track must have been sorted. Aye right. Dream on. But I made it ok and the exhaust is still on the car.
Gear on, cross the Allt Breac thinking if Lucy can do this so can I. Lovely views over the Findhorn river/glen, farmer working the fields up here, follow the script, miffed at the drop to the burn but soon I'm walking the S
flank of Carn an uillt Bhric to reach the end of track. A path leaves the turning point NW past a stone stack to
a flat area with a trig point. I wander out, sit and check the map, ok two trigs on this walk. Follow white poles down across the dreaded peat hags, which just keep on coming. Dempsters warning of walkers beware rings true. However bolstered by Panther images of white stony paths re the bottom of the hags makes for easy walking and with an occasional white post glimpsed I finally emerge out for a rough green carpet that leads to
a fence then Tri-tighearnan trig point. I sit and contemplate my journey Some 1.5km for16m. in height. I look around. SW. another wind farm, heather burning on five hill areas, my last Graham lost in folds of the ground
and still the Cairngorms backdrop. N across the Moray Firth the mass of Ben Wyvis so its back to the peat
hags and return the way I came, At the car a wash, brush up and feed the body. A diversion to Lochindorb
castle, home to the Wolf of Badenloch is wasted. Just walls stuck upon a island, UK geo will tell me it was ordered destroyed by the then king, so that only leaves the run home after a good couple of days..