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Why is hillwalking gear so uniformly bland? Why don't Montane or Mountain Equipment, Haglofs or Rab produce Goretex gear in zebra stripes, polka dots, faux denim, or eyeball-popping purple? How about leopard print?Walking past the multi coloured motley crew gathered at the car park of Cairngorm ski centre, the thought did occur that the options available to us who opt to explore the slopes sans skis or snowboards are seriously limited.
It was interesting to start my first sojourn into the Northern Cairngorms at a place that was so busy with folk who were there for a completely different reason. Never quite felt the attraction of skiing or snowboarding although the novelty of a pint at the bottom of the hill/ slope is nothing to be frowned at.
This pair of munros are, in the benign conditions we mainly had, totally enjoyable and straightforward. The cloud behaved and stayed above munro height all day allowing us to enjoy views over towards Braeriach and co as we walked towards Ben Macdui. Up on the plateau, harsh gusts of wind from the west momentarily created glimpses of a different environment.
- spring-like start
- looking back towards loch morvich
- waiting for the sun
- to the west
- From Macdui to Cairngorm, passing mini ice sculptures
The highlights of the day were probably the emerging views of Coire an Lochan and the close-up sight of the top of Fingers Ridge as we headed along towards Cairngorm.
- big space!
- over to bynack more
- all downhill for him
The Ptarmigan restaurant/ café would no doubt be a most welcome sight to most folk but neither of us had any cash with us so we dodged past a group of snowboarders making the most of a final run down the slope and made our own way back down to the path and within a half hour or so, back down to the start point.
- on the piste
We finished off the day with a wee drink in the café which shut at 5pm. So much for the après ski, I thought as we headed out to the benches to join the remnants of the bright bunch from earlier.
It had been an unusually simple day out: the majority of our walks this year seem to have been around ten hours long and have usually involved some sort of mishap or other. So homeward we went, stopping off to take a pic of the hills from the banks of Loch Morvich, whilst a purposeful mallard crossed the road...to get to the other side...