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Watching the weather forecast and the first promising day for the best part of a week, decision was made to hit the hills. The forecast looked slightly better in the east so I scanned over the Cairngorm routes and opted to tackle Beinn Mheadhoin and Derry Cairngorm.
Karen contacted me and offered to tag along, we are both conscious to try and get fit for our imminent trip to Skye in a couple of weeks
We knew we were in for a long day and it certainly turned out that way, having surveyed the hills from a distance we decided to leave the winter gear in the car
We had agreed to meet in Perth (as usual) and Karen would act as co-pilot and arrived at the Linn of Dee car park just after 8.30am.
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martin_beswick, Car park through the trees
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martin_beswick, Nice wooden path
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martin_beswick, Karen in the distance, taking some of her 49,500 steps
In respect of the title, it was Karen that took all those steps, I probably took slightly more than half
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martin_beswick, the hills peeking above the trees
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martin_beswick, hills getting slightly nearer
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martin_beswick, Karen demonstrating her balancing skills
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martin_beswick, Rain forest in Scotland?
The path to Derry Lodge is a good wide track and quite a bit of time could be saved by using a two wheeled pedaling machine
It seems such a shame that what looks like a good solid building is standing empty with all the numerous windows boarded up, would be a great place for a bunk house
Once Derry Lodge is reached we turned right up a smaller path that avoids crossing Derry Burn, we did admire the new bridge and for a temporary structure looked pretty good to me
In the distance we saw a couple of figures who we caught up with fairly quickly, mainly because of the handicap difference
They were planning to camp/bothy over the weekend, hope you guys managed to stay dry
The path then winds it's way along through Glen Derry, when it eventually splits, we took the left hand fork which took us over a 'simple' bridge
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martin_beswick, Path, even I couldn't lose it
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martin_beswick, nice little bridge
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martin_beswick, Concentration
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martin_beswick, as we reached the top of Glen Derry the path then turned left into Coire Etchachan
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martin_beswick, Coire Etchachan, with the wee bothy barely visible
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martin_beswick, Zoomed shot
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martin_beswick, Is there a more sheltered bothy?
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martin_beswick, Picking our way up to the bealach, superb backdrop
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martin_beswick, Karen enjoying the snow, would it last
Once the bothy was reached, we had a peek inside
It was at that time we reached the snow level and from then on it just varied in depth
Loch Etchachan looked really picturesque, partly frozen and partly snow covered, hopefully the photo's will do it justice
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martin_beswick, Loch Etchachan
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martin_beswick, slightly different angle
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martin_beswick, Looking down on the Loch, the weather was doing it's best to interfere
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martin_beswick, Weather interference again
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martin_beswick, Not sure what Karen was taking a picture of
The climb up Stob Coire Etchachan to the barns of Beinn Mheadhoin was tough going, I tried to avoid any deep snow, however that is far easier said than done and as I was trail blazing it was just a matter of picking our way up.
One thing I haven't mentioned is the numerous times we stopped either to remove layers, add layers, add jacket, remove jacket - we did try and plan ahead before the showers struck
Another factor was the constant change in temperature and that was with very little wind to add to the confusion
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martin_beswick, shot to the NW from the summit plateau of Beinn Mheadhoin
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martin_beswick, one of the half dozen or so barns on the summit plateau
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martin_beswick, the biggest barn
We met 4 guys who were heading up as we were rapidly descending down the snow, hope you guys enjoyed the day
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martin_beswick, back down at the ford that crosses over the run off from Loch Etchachan
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martin_beswick, the way ahead to Derry Cairngorm, met up with a couple of guys doing the same route in reverse
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martin_beswick, Macdui in the background
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martin_beswick, one of our local feathered friends
The route up to Derry Cairngorm was tough to start with mainly because we started heading up Creagan a' Choire Etchachan, once we realised we were slightly off the beaten track we traversed to the right and things were fairly easy after that. As you will appreciate we had no path or foot prints to follow, so it was navigating using the mark one eyeball and Maverick
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martin_beswick, Karen smiling on the 2nd summit
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martin_beswick,
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martin_beswick,
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martin_beswick, Nice shaped rocks snuggling up together
The descent off Derry Cairngorm was easy at first as we had footsteps to follow and aid our descent route
Once we reached the bottom of the snow line the path was very obvious and it was just a matter of heading down, down and down. The views of Glen Derry and Glen Lui were spectacular
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martin_beswick, Glen Lui
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martin_beswick, Glen Lui zoomed
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martin_beswick, Glen Derry
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martin_beswick, Glen Derry zoomed
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martin_beswick, Group of teenagers setting up camp next to the Derry Burn
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martin_beswick, Karen posing on the "new" bridge
Once over the Derry Burn it was just a matter of knocking off the miles back to the car park, the constant light drizzle didn't make the walk back very pleasant
Big THANKS to Karen for your great company again and of course for the dinner - eventually
I won't mention where we ate, but we won't be rushing back
Having to wait 30 minutes before you can order your food and then another 40 minutes before it arrives doesn't quite meet the 'fast food' criteria
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