Crippling off of Cairngorms in total darkness

[Karen1989]

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We started off our adventure at Linn of Dee car park early doors, aware of the long walk ahead of us to reach the bottom of Carn a'Mhaim.

As we walked along the excellent path running by the Glen Lui river we heard a bell from a bicycle behind us and after a quick chat it transpired we were both heading for the same mountain. On the bike was Tom, a very friendly, experienced hill walker from England , we continued walking past the Derry Lodge and eventually reached the bottom of Carn a'Mhaim where Tom was getting ready to climb.

He asked if we would like to walk with him to the summit of Carn a'Mhaim and we were only too happy to walk with him

It didn't take too long to reach the summit of Carn a' Mhaim and to the left of us we could see super views of the Devil's point, Cairn Toul, Braeriach and the LaIrig Ghru - I was amazed at the view!

Summit of Carn a 'Mhaim - Alan and Tom

Views

After taking in the spectacular views we told Tom that we were heading for Derry Cairngorm next and he said that he was going to walk there too. We walked down the other side of Carn a' Mhaim and across to Derry Cairngorm.

The top of Derry Cairngorm is very rocky

The summit of Derry Cairngorm

Alan on the summit of Derry Cairngorm

It was here that Tom decided to head back to the car park but took our number and promised to let us know when he got back home safely.

We retraced our steps back to the path and headed for our 3rd munro of the day - Beinn Mheadhoin.

Alan with Loch Etchachan in the background

It was a quite a steep ascent up Beinn Mheadhoin but worth it to get to the spectacular summit that awaited us

Summit of Beinn Mheadhoin

We then had the difficult descent off of Beinn Mheadhoin followed by a very tiring climb up to our fourth munro of the day - Beinn a'Chaorainn, we were literally on our hands and knees, lying on the hill at times when we were exhausted

We eventually reached the summit of Beinn a'Chaorainn but didn't stay too long as it was starting to get a bit colder at the top.

The summit of Beinn a'Chaorainn with Beinn Mheadhoin in the background

Beinn Bhreac didn't look too far away however looks can be deceiving as we discovered!!!

We started what we thought would be an easy trek over to the summit of Beinn Bhreac however it ended up taking forever and a day to get across to it with soft, wet and squidgy ground. This is where my knees decided to pack up for the day! and every step from then on in was painful however we eventually reached the summit

Alan on the summit of Beinn Bhreac

It was late when we started to descend Bein Bhreac and I was very aware that the sun was going down rapidly!

My knees felt like they had no cartilage left in them and therefore I sat down and started rolling myself down the hill , Alan wondered off in front of me to try and identify the path before the last light went, I was quite worried at this point but didn't want to say this to Alan as I thought it would worry him!

We eventually hit the path where it was more flat and I could eventually stand up, Alan acted as my crutch as I crippled off of the hillside in pitch black darkness

We were so relieved to have found the path

Eventually we reached Derry Lodge but were completely confused as to which direction we required to go to return to the Linn of Dee car park - Alan pointed one way (which was the wrong way) and we started to walk in this direction for a short period of time however we bumped into a gentleman who had decided to call off camping on Carn a'Mhaim summit because it was too windy who put us back on the correct path! Very thankful to this man!

After a long walk back along the path we finally reached the car and our adventure had finally finished!

[Sgurr]

That is a monster walk. Well done. Hope your knee is recovering it sounds really painful....maybe walking poles next time? Husband finds them really helpful with his sore knee. Short map reading refresher course in order? It would have been the last straw to get yourselves lost in the walk back to the car park.

[Karen1989]

yes it was a very long but enjoyable day (for the most part ), I think your right we would definitely benefit from a map reading course and poles would soften the impact when descending . Some of the views in the heart of the Cairngorms are amazing