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I'm the eldest of 5, I have 2 sister and 2 brothers but I very rarely do anything with my siblings but for some crazy reason I asked my brother to come for a walk with me. My brother is in the RAF Regiment and a member of the RAF Mountain Rescue Team so he's super fit. I was in the worst shape of my life around the time we done this walk together so maybe this was the worst idea ever.
He took the short drive from Grantown on Spey to Aviemore to pick me up in his fancy car and then we took the even shorter drive to Glen More. Parked up, got kited out and headed along the old logging path. a Nice flat path to start with, gets the blood pumping.
We passed the Green Loch and when we got the fork in the path we took the Braemar route.
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- The Green Loch
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- Ryvoan Pass sign
Just after you cross the little bridge at the site of the former stable the path becomes a little steeper but it's in good condition and it makes it easer but half way up the path to the plateau I received a phone call, a fricking phone call about a work related issue. I stopped to take the call and once it was over I started off again with the walk but as soon as I took my first step something in my left hip popped, it was making my steps uncomfortable but I kept going. We were soon on the plateau and we got our first proper look at the hill.
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- The bridge, the brother and Strath Nethy
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- The brother & Bynack More
The hardest part of walking this hill is the short steep slope you have to climb when coming off the plateau but once you are up the steepest part it's fairly straight forward walk to the summit but there are some nice rock formations to explore.
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- Bynack More seems a little boring but when you are on it's top it's actually rather interesting.
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- Bynack More summit (it's not my picture)
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- Beinn Mheadhoin on the left with Cairngorm on the right. Ben MacDui centre
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- Beinn a'Chaorainn on the left with Beinn Mheadhoin on the right. The 2 closest Munros in the picture
Once at the cairn we stopped to have a bite to eat. The weather was trying to be nice but the clouds kept the sun away so the jackets went on but only until we started walking again. We were going to just nip across A'Choinneach and take the saddle and do Cairngorm that way but we made the decision to visit the Barns of Bynack so we headed down to the massive and impressive rock formation.
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- The Barns of Bynack with my brother standing in front of them, can you see him?
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- The Barns of Bynack are really interesting rock formations
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- Looking through the rock to the blue sky
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- Looking from the Barns in the general direction of Tomintoul...not much to see really
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- The Barns from below
After visiting the Barns we kept going down the hill and found our way to the Lairig an Laoigh and we made our way to the Fords of Avon and the Avon Refuge. I was in a great deal of pain, my hip was really in a bad way and I only told my brother at the refuge. We rested here for a bit, the sun was out and it's a nice spot for a sit down.
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- Loch A'an
After exploring the refuge we headed up the river towards Loch Avon/A'an. The OS map says there's a path but we couldn't really see it, it was broken and soggy. We made our way up the grassy banks of the Avon and we got to the loch after a short time, we were welcomed into the glen with a great views.
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- Loch A'an
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- Looking up Loch A'an and a part of the nasty path
We took the path up the side of the loch with the intention of picking up the path that would take us up Coire an t-Sneachda but I was in pain, the path was muddy uneven and slippery. I told my brother I had enough of this path and I was going to just head up and over the hill. He told me this was a bad idea and it was going to be worse but I wasn't in the mood for a sensible discussion and just started heading up. I got part way up the hill and realised this was a shocking idea but I had started and I was going to go back down now. If you look at the below photo you can see how steep the slope I was on was...
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- Part way up the super steep slope, a good chance to snap the most beautiful loch in Scotland
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- Looking back to the Refuge
Two thirds of the way up I came up against a rocky wall, the hill was practically vertical at this point. My brother has bombed ahead of me and is sitting and waiting above me. I was struggling, sore and afraid, I was about to scramble up a rock face that if I fall from it will result in long drop and certain injury. I loosened the straps on my bag and slowly made my way up the rock, I can't stress the point enough of how demanding this was going to be for me...time for a bit of back story...8 months earlier I went under the knife to have a part of my liver removed after suffering a nasty illness that made my organs fail. After recovering from the illness, then operation I put on 5 stone of body mass because I don't digest and process fats properly...boo hoo, worlds smallest violin and all that...on with the report.
The rock I was on was narrow and was the better option to the grassy slope, the hill was so steep that when I was standing upright all I could see in front me was grass, I couldn't actually go up it. My brother was shouting out advice but we couldn't see each other because of the geography "TAKE THE ROCK, TAKE YOUR TIME AND KEEP 3 POINTS OF CONTACT ON THE ROCK". It must have been good advice because I made it up the rock. I don't remember much of the actual scramble but I know it was the hardest thing I have ever done, once I reached the top of the rock I was up the worst of the hill and by comparison the next part of the hill was practically flat. I was on my hands & knees with crawling onto a safe spot to rest. My hip, back and now chest were sore I thought I was maybe having a heart attack but I wasn't going to be that lucky, at least I would have gotten a helicopter ride of the mountain! My brother handed me half an orange and told me to keep going. We still had 200 metres of height to make but it was about 3/4 of a kilometre to the summit. Mountains and incredibly massive and it's only when you are on them you realise this. The walk from here was across grass and short heather before a short steep slope took us onto the rocky top of Cairngorm and to the Summit at last.
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- I was totally beat by this point, I couldn't enjoy being on this summit.
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- The Cairngorm weather station
After collapsing on the cairn I took a few minutes to rest up and we realised the time, it was getting late and the clouds were rolling in and we still had a hell of a walk to get to the car but at least it was all down hill right? We took the Windy Ridge path as per my brother. I wanted to go down the road. This path had lots of steps and some of them were high so walking was very unpleasant due to my sore joints. Slow progress was being made and I fell once just to rub the salt in my wounds or little bits of red grit in this case. Mercifully the path ended at the base station and now I had to just make it to the car. I was knackered and it was my intention to ask somebody for a lift but the car park was empty bar a few cars without people. We headed down the road rather than taking the path through the woods as it was getting dark. This part of the walk was fine, the flat ground wasn't so bad for my hip and knees, we were making progress and got past the old car park when I head a car coming so I stuck out my thumb, it stopped. I was so happy. The guys from the G2 Outdoor
www.g2outdoor.co.uk were up trying to get some parasailing down however wind conditions were all wrong apparently. We jumped in the van and that was that. We got dropped off at the car park by the Reindeer Centre, sorted ourselves out then headed home.
I learned a few things on this walk. 1) Stick to the plan. 2) Take enough food to feed 2 people for yourself. 3) Do a walk within your physical limits.
(walked with My brother)