Braeriach

[rosalie&matt]

Instead of watching the event of the Decade, up a hill we went. Was a lovely day for it and by 11am (Kate was just coming in the Abbey) we were heading up the Lairig Ghru valley on thw Whitewell Curcuit route. Down low it was lovely and warm and it took till we were startign to head up onto the Sron na Lairig ridge before we hit any snow. It was jsut a bit of the left overs and quickly passed. As we headedup here the wind picked up to a howling gale up teh top of the ridge that literally blew me off my feet at one stage and was blowing my poles into my legs ith each step. At this point I would quite happily have called it quits and headed back but knowing Matt would just leave me while he headed to the top kept me moving. One step after the other, only way to climb a hill... The wind across the ridge here, while not cold was very strong and insessant. The views down the valleys though were magnificent and it really is amazing how high you can get in a fairly short space of time. After a chocolate stop and with a ptarmagan chasing us on, we headed over the saddle and up to the top. We met a few people heading back down (sooo jealous) and also a couple of fellows who had done our route in reverse who were able to tell me the wind dropped once we passed the summit.
Obligatory summit photos and headed towards teh corries as fast as possible and then wind did drop quite quickly and the walk once agian became a nice day out. As we headed along the 2 corries, saw icebergs floating in the small loch at the base of the corrie. Here we cut down over the heather towards the landrover track. The discription had warned of a bolder field but we found it pretty good goign. As we headed down we came a across avery funny looking tame deer that after sending photos to Matt's dad in NZ we found out was one of the local reindeer. It was a bit boggy through the lower portion here but nothing deep. I could imagine that later in the spring summer this could either dry out or be a big breeding ground for midges. Once we hit the landrover track by the river it was was sunny warm and all good. It was also a very good track here with just a couple of wee streams that had rocks to hop over to avoid wet feet. Backtothe car in 8 hours 15 and then backto our wee cottage inTimintoul for a well deserved soak int the bath, wine and steak dinner! This is a very nice route and not that hard but the wind acrosss the ridge did suck.
I was able to walk pretty well the next day which is a marked improvement from Lochnagar theother weeks so yay! Have to plan which hill we'll do next week!