Creag Mhor & Creag na Spaine - Crathie
Date walked: 04/04/2024
Time taken: 3.5 hours
Distance: 4.5km
Ascent: 337m
Another iffy week with the weather, Heavy rain in Westhill most of the week, but a window, promised today.
Fair this morning and Harvey back from his holidays, so picked him up and headed west.
Surprised by a Range Rover whooshing by us on one of the B9119 straights, doing an estimated ton. Must've been awfy late for work !
CREAG MHOR
Turned up the B976 and wound our way to the parking in a big muddy lay-down area.
Waited a few minutes until the sleet stopped then tooled up. The sun had started poking through holes in the clouds, so not too bad. Wandered up the dubbie track to the Crathie Burn ford and splashed across. Followed the path up the edge of the trees near the fence to a auld broken-down dyke.
Crossed the dyke at a gap and picked up an animal path slanting along to the right then cut off up to thread our way through the old treefell ( as others had before us ) to reach the clearing with the cairn. Greeted by the sun and a wee flurry of snow.
Sat for a wee while absorbing the suns rays before descending to the fence and cutting along to the gap in the dyke and back down to the Crathie Burn for another splash, followed by a plooter back to the car down the dubbie track.
=========================================================================================
CRAIG na SPAINE
Cruised back down to the main road and along to the turnoff to Thistldae, where a lady who'd made a wrong turn was trying to to correct her mistake. We waited for the completion of this maneouvre and drove up the tarmac road to Thistledae and parked up in a big turnaround where some tarmac detritus had been dumped, presumably from a previous road repair.
Parked out of the way and set off along the road to look for a gate in the deer fence.
Found no gate, but a long span between 2 posts and the lack of BW allowed us to part the wire between the upper and lower sections to squeeze both Harvey and ourselves through without damaging anything and reached the forest track on the other side. Dawdled up the track until we spotted the firebreak we intended to utilise for our ascent. Heather and moss at the bottom, but then became just mossy with animal tracks threading up the steep incline through some rocky bits.
Passed the 2 intersecting track ends coming from the west and made our way to the welcome dip just befor the last wee bit to the crest of the ridge.
2 Tops appeared - each of which looked higher from the other.
GC's GPS recorded the W top as a metre higher. By that time we'd visited both - just in case !
Once more we basked in the sun among the fallen trees and were sheltered from the sharp breeze.
Returned the same way, except at the bottom of the FB we followed an animal path which veered to the E and back to the forest track.
We found our bit of fence to squeeze back through again and sauntered back to the car. On our arrival back at the car, we noticed the the fence across the road was lying down, so there was really no need for any limbo-ing further along the track if we'd been more observant!. Ah well c'est la vie......
On the way driving back down the road, just past the old church, we spotted a bench and cairn. Being nosey buggers, we stopped to investigate,. Nothing more than a Queen Elizabeth Jubilee memorial.
Had to hustle when a keeper in his Landrover appeared coming up the road. He gratiously reversed back over the bridge to allow us to pass.
Scooted into Ballater to sus out a BR, but the other cafe was closed, so we had to make do with the cheese toasties & rabbit food on the side, again at the Bothy Cafe.
Still lots of easter tourists - probably lining up for their £100 tour round the castle........
Suitably fortified, we headed back home.
Nae a bad day after all - albeit fairly short.
Fair this morning and Harvey back from his holidays, so picked him up and headed west.
Surprised by a Range Rover whooshing by us on one of the B9119 straights, doing an estimated ton. Must've been awfy late for work !
CREAG MHOR
Turned up the B976 and wound our way to the parking in a big muddy lay-down area.
Waited a few minutes until the sleet stopped then tooled up. The sun had started poking through holes in the clouds, so not too bad. Wandered up the dubbie track to the Crathie Burn ford and splashed across. Followed the path up the edge of the trees near the fence to a auld broken-down dyke.
Crossed the dyke at a gap and picked up an animal path slanting along to the right then cut off up to thread our way through the old treefell ( as others had before us ) to reach the clearing with the cairn. Greeted by the sun and a wee flurry of snow.
Sat for a wee while absorbing the suns rays before descending to the fence and cutting along to the gap in the dyke and back down to the Crathie Burn for another splash, followed by a plooter back to the car down the dubbie track.
=========================================================================================
CRAIG na SPAINE
Cruised back down to the main road and along to the turnoff to Thistldae, where a lady who'd made a wrong turn was trying to to correct her mistake. We waited for the completion of this maneouvre and drove up the tarmac road to Thistledae and parked up in a big turnaround where some tarmac detritus had been dumped, presumably from a previous road repair.
Parked out of the way and set off along the road to look for a gate in the deer fence.
Found no gate, but a long span between 2 posts and the lack of BW allowed us to part the wire between the upper and lower sections to squeeze both Harvey and ourselves through without damaging anything and reached the forest track on the other side. Dawdled up the track until we spotted the firebreak we intended to utilise for our ascent. Heather and moss at the bottom, but then became just mossy with animal tracks threading up the steep incline through some rocky bits.
Passed the 2 intersecting track ends coming from the west and made our way to the welcome dip just befor the last wee bit to the crest of the ridge.
2 Tops appeared - each of which looked higher from the other.
GC's GPS recorded the W top as a metre higher. By that time we'd visited both - just in case !
Once more we basked in the sun among the fallen trees and were sheltered from the sharp breeze.
Returned the same way, except at the bottom of the FB we followed an animal path which veered to the E and back to the forest track.
We found our bit of fence to squeeze back through again and sauntered back to the car. On our arrival back at the car, we noticed the the fence across the road was lying down, so there was really no need for any limbo-ing further along the track if we'd been more observant!. Ah well c'est la vie......
On the way driving back down the road, just past the old church, we spotted a bench and cairn. Being nosey buggers, we stopped to investigate,. Nothing more than a Queen Elizabeth Jubilee memorial.
Had to hustle when a keeper in his Landrover appeared coming up the road. He gratiously reversed back over the bridge to allow us to pass.
Scooted into Ballater to sus out a BR, but the other cafe was closed, so we had to make do with the cheese toasties & rabbit food on the side, again at the Bothy Cafe.
Still lots of easter tourists - probably lining up for their £100 tour round the castle........
Suitably fortified, we headed back home.
Nae a bad day after all - albeit fairly short.
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-
Gordon Ballantyne
- Location: Westhill, Aberdeenshire
- Occupation: Retired
- Activity: Munro compleatist
- Mountain: Ladhar Bheinn
- Place: Knoydart
- Member: Ex- RAF MRT Kinloss
- Ambition: survival
- Munros: 282
- Corbetts: 90
- Fionas: 20
- Donalds: 7
- Sub 2000: 59
- Filter reports
- Trips: 7
- Distance: 37.5 km
- Ascent: 2004m
- Trips: 40
- Distance: 576 km
- Ascent: 20029m
- Trips: 47
- Distance: 537.5 km
- Ascent: 17406m
- Trips: 40
- Distance: 498 km
- Ascent: 15970m
- Corbetts: 1
- Trips: 40
- Distance: 503.75 km
- Ascent: 18940m
- Trips: 72
- Distance: 712.1 km
- Ascent: 30825m
- Corbetts: 2
- Sub2000s: 4
- Trips: 34
- Distance: 238.1 km
- Ascent: 11995m
- Corbetts: 3
- Sub2000s: 13
- Trips: 20
- Distance: 174.7 km
- Ascent: 7787m
- Munros: 1
- Fionas: 2
- Sub2000s: 26
- Trips: 13
- Distance: 160.9 km
- Ascent: 9193m
- Corbetts: 9
- Fionas: 1
- Sub2000s: 2
- Trips: 16
- Distance: 224.8 km
- Ascent: 9680m
- Corbetts: 14
- Fionas: 1
- Sub2000s: 2
- Trips: 16
- Distance: 208 km
- Ascent: 11042m
- Munros: 1
- Corbetts: 19
- Donalds: 7
- Trips: 3
- Distance: 44 km
- Ascent: 2155m
- Munros: 2
- Corbetts: 1
- Trips: 7
- Distance: 115.4 km
- Ascent: 5114m
- Corbetts: 3
- Fionas: 6
- Sub2000s: 1
- Trips: 8
- Distance: 96 km
- Ascent: 4434m
- Munros: 1
- Corbetts: 3
- Fionas: 4
- Trips: 1
- Distance: 22 km
- Ascent: 2030m
- Trips: 1
- Distance: 11 km
- Ascent: 1160m
- Corbetts: 1
- Joined: Jan 30, 2011
- Last visited: Apr 10, 2024
- Total posts: 399 | Search posts