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Actually started the Cairnwell Munros’ walk the week before. Picked my brother Bob up early on and arrived at Glenshee just after 7 in the morning. A good drive up, seen plenty of rabbits and managed to miss them. A few pheasants, a buzzard and a roe deer. Felt as if we were on a Disney film set.
Got out the car, put on the jacket, looked out the rucksack and discovered that I had left my boots back in Dundee. Think Bob was a bit relieved as the mist was rolling in and it did not look like a good day to walk.
Decided to cut our losses and headed back to Dundee only for the Disney theme to continue with a huge roe deer deciding to run out in front of the car from nowhere. I screamed, Bob's face was a picture and the deer ran relieved over into the fields. Funny how your pulse can race with no effort.
Back again this morning around the same time, felt like ground hogg day as mist was rolling in but this time there the rain was a bit heavier. Boots in car with the water proofs (yahoo) . Decided we would walk to the first Munro (Cairnwell) and followed the chair lift up to the top. It was wet and miserable but the mist started to get thicker. With not getting up last week there was a determination to go up even though we knew we would not have a view. After reaching the top of the chair lift (this was a slog) the rest was quite easy and oddly quite ok to walk in. However the visibility was poor. I took these photos of the mast and the hut on the cairn and as you can see we can barely see ourselves.
- The hut at the top with Bob having got his hat which had blown off
- Lovely views
We then headed to Carn a’ Gheoidh. The track back to the chair lift makes this quite easy and we followed the path around to the next chair lift and then headed off the skiers track towards Carn a’ Gheoidh. This was another good walk but the rain was now heavier and the wind made it very cold, with the rain stinging your face. Glad we had Bob’s expert map reading skills and the GPS. Bob had put in route markers in to GPS and on to the map. However both did not correspond for Carn nan Sac. We took a reference point from the GPS and discovered that the route marker inputted in to the GPS was wrong. Just shows having the ability to read a map makes a huge difference. With the doubt out of our minds we headed off and reached the cairn. The wind was hollowing, the mist was rolling in and I was thinking why did we do this? The picture actually shows Bob’s head over the top of the cairn but well done if you can actually see.
This picture also shows the view towards the cairn
We decided to carry on and do the 3rd Carn Aosda as it was on the way back anyway. My thoughts are the ski development had made this a fairly easy trio of munros’ to do but in better weather. This was not pleasurable but we were up so decided to make the best of it. Again the mist is unreal. We had caught a glimpse of Loch Vrotachan when heading towards Carn a’ Gheoidh and thought we would take a slight detour on the way back down but no chance as could not see it. However these large steel structures in the mist look very spooky and the path to Carn Aosda when you find is make life a bit easier. Not much of a cairn but views with the mist impossible see the photo below.
We followed the chair lift track back down and this was a good feeling to be heading home. On the way back the mist started to lift and some of the views up the glen can potentially be excellent (maybe next time). However a great sense of achievement and as always a few learning point for me. Never forget your boots, trust your instinct and ensure you have a method of cross referencing exactly where you are.