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we walked a bit different route than suggested on WH. after climbing a'chailleach we just went to am bodach and geal charn, descented to newtonmore.
that was the day 3 of our trip to cairngorms and monadliath mountains. after a nice and early breakfast, geoff (owner of b&b which we stayed in) gave us a lift to the start of the track going to a'chailleach. that gave us an option to start and end our day in different points, and so - climb more mountains
the day started with a lovely orange-clouded sunrise and walking on a track with nice and fresh snow on it we could clearly see that we were first on the track that day- first except deer, fox and few rabbits. we were lucky that geoff was a hill runner himself and knew the area pretty well (from walking point of view). he advised to cross the river (our track went along it at first) at the wee cairn (later that day we saw some more walkers who tried to cross the river further on and they really struggled). after crossing allt a'chaorainn the path became faint and was disappearing and reappearing therefore we decided to 'let it go' and just took out direction straight ahead to the summit, thru heather bushes. still we had to cross few more streams but in those cases we just followed animals' footprints (they've got some instinct, right? they know what to do, right?). unfortunately the summit stayed covered in clouds for most of our way and we just knew roughly which direction to go (by the way, my instincts were ok too, and we climbed the summit nice and easy). due to high and freezing cold wind we just took a quick photie at the summit and started descent. after couple of minutes we 'went out of the cloud' and saw some awesome views around - to carn squlain (another munro), am bodach and geal charn. another stream crossing (again following deer footprints) and we were half way up to am bodach. in the meantime sky over a'chailleach cleared out and we managed to take some nice pics. from am bodach we had to go thru rough heather bushes (again!!!) to geal charn and from there we had to find a path (it started somewhere half way down the mountain) -easy peasy, again my instincts led us perfectly
(proud of myself). during last hour of our journey, on a proper track, we enjoyed great views to cairngorms and a nice sunset.
to say it in one word- the day was GREAT!!!
more pics here -
http://around-scotland.blogspot.com/2011/01/achailleach-am-bodach-geal-charn.htmlenjoy
