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One of the perks of my current job is that I get a week off prior to each seven day stretch of nights. It had been an easy decision to spend it with my wonderful uncle and aunt (and her cooking) out in the wilds of Aberdeenshire. The prospect of combining this with a couple of days of hillwalking/climbing/ski touring was doubly enticing.
So I'd been obsessively weather-watching for a fortnight. The news on the whole wasn't good: a full-swing thaw was unceremoniously denuding the mountains. Straight off, this put paid to my plan of ski touring the route I'm about to describe, and the thought of missing out on its winter beauty was rather sad. However, too much of that attitude and you'd never leave home, eh? And it's worth remembering that, on the day, the mercurial Scottish weather can conjure marvellous things out of the most unpromising ingredients.
So my response to 5am's alarm was as enthusiastic as the hour generally permits. I drowsily located breakfast and some sandwich ingredients in my aunt's kitchen while feeding the cats who'd come in from the cold at the unlikely sight of a light. Then gear packed and into the car for the hour and half's drive to Glen Muick.
I was about halfway in when the crimson of sunrise forced me off the road and out into the chilly dawn air to attempt phone camera documentation. The hills to the west were blushing crimson and orange at the sight of this new day, seeming to presage something less utilitarian than a shepherd's warning.
- Red sky in the morning
Sure enough, as predicted by MWIS, the clouds didn't look too low. I got a first tantalising glimpse of Lochnagar, its corrie stark black and white against this sea of morning colour. It alone had the reach to grip the cloud down to it and there was no doubting its determination to hold on.
I got parked just before 8 - second in the car park - and set off. Soon the Paramo jacket came off and I was sweating uphill through the woods in a t-shirt.
Then the wind hit, a stiff westerly. If it was this strong down here, I knew the first half of the day could turn into quite a battle up on the plateau, and it wasn't long before the Paramo was back on.
I took a chocolate break in the last bit of shelter I could find beneath Meikle Pap and then climbed up to the bealach to see what Lochnagar had in store. Well, it was pretty ferocious, certainly gusting up to 70mph just at that bottleneck: the only way out of the corrie for the west to northwesterlies. This only added to the menace of the cliffs and gullies under cloud. Before the weather misbehaved, I'd hoped to ascend via Black Spout, the chink in the armour, and I was gladdened to see the thaw hadn't eaten into it much, this last northeast vestige of winter. However, the thought of being buried by a few tons of steep frowning cornice had been enough to scotch the plan.
- The steep frowning glories
- Across the corrie
Instead, I staggered up the boulder field to the left, balance a bit of an issue in the wind, before continuing round and up, keeping mostly to the lip of this most superb corrie. As I got higher, into the cloud now, I was pleased to find its majestic cornices still very much asserting themselves at the gully peaks, though there were clear signs of rot at the near edges (climbers beware!)
Having found my way to the top of Black Spout, a sudden break in the cloud revealed Cac Carn Beag to my left and I made for it.
The top reached, I chowed down in the lee of the summit rocks while the clouds fell away with perfect punctuality, revealing a semi-frozen Loch nan Eun couched in the Stuic Buttress and, to its left, the barely noticeable swelling of my onward destination.
- Clouds clear over Cac Carn Beag, looking across to a frozen Loch nan Eun and the Stuic Buttress.
All now clear before me, I walked some of the way towards Cac Carn Mor before turning southwest for Carn a' Choire Bhoidheach which was to be my 50th Munro. A less inspiring summit can scarcely be imagined. In fact even its local path eschews it to the north. My 50th really ought to have been a more fitting An Stuc under snow, 10 days previously, but for the downrating of Sgurr nan Ceannaichean to Corbett status. I did though dutifully take a picture.
- The dullest Munro summit in the world? Cac Carn Beag in silhouette behind.
The onward route to Carn an t-Sagairt Mor did at least promise a wee snow field on the ascent and, having contoured round Carn an t-Sagairt Beag, I made straight for it. En route, I was discovering an advantage to walking into a stiff wind in the wilderness: the animals ahead of you don't so easily sense your approach and I saw quite a number of snow hares - one came closer than 10m while I was sat eating lunch - as well as a couple of ptarmigan, not to mention plenty of grouse. After a minor slog I was on top of this slightly more prominent mound and met my first fellow-walker of the day. I envied his account of having done these hills on skis on a previous occasion. He was able to give me vague directions to the aircraft wreckage on the west slopes and, after some sustenance, I went in search of it.
See
http://www.aircrashsites-scotland.co.uk/canberra_c-t-sagairt-mor01.htm for details of the aircraft and the mysterious circumstances surrounding its demise. The most noteworthy remains I was able to find were a wheel and a crumpled engine. To find the former, bear 200m at 230 degrees from the southern summit cairn. From there, it's about 150m at 185 degrees to the latter.
- A wheel
- Engine crumpled over a rock
Still out of the cloud, the onward journey over Cairn Bannoch to Broad Cairn was a fine moorland tramp affording cracking views of Eagles Rock to the north and Coire Loch Kander to the southwest.
- The Allt a' Choire Bhoidheach plunges into thin air over Eagles Rock
Broad Cairn reached, I was back in sight of Loch Muick, the air scented with burning heather ahead.
- Loch Muick and heather burning
I managed to find a bit more snow on the northeasterly aspect of the mountain to give the descent some variety, though nothing warranting an exchange of walking poles for ice axe, before picking up what is more of a Landrover track than a path. I considered leaving it to take the route which leads down the hillside to the southwest end of the loch, but opted for the high-level views instead. I was not disappointed, finally getting a good eyeful of Creag an Dubh-loch.
- Looking back to Broad Cairn, the cliffs of Creag an Dubh-loch appropriately dark and menacing to its right
- The west end of Loch Muick
- Queen Vic's getaway hidden in the tress below the Falls of the Glassallt
However, the feet were now starting to hurt a little and I pressed on all the more quickly with the Spittal back in view: the final descent of the day is one aspect of hillwalking I could happily skip, fine sunsets excepted. As final miles go though, those along the east shore of Loch Muick, looking back at your last summit as a prodigal sun threads late afternoon light over the water, aren't bad ones.
- Black Burn falls
- The end of the day over Broad Cairn
I reached the car with its accompanying comforts (principally a change of footwear) at quarter to five and, with a good dinner in prospect, the day was still looking better and better.