walkhighlands

Glenmore weekend (with Cairn Gorm)

Route: Cairn Gorm and the northern corries

Munros: Cairn Gorm

Date walked: 10/09/2023

Time taken: 7 hours

Distance: 17km

Ascent: 750m

Turned out I had a suprise free weekend - and the weather was nice. So, after a bit of deliberating, I picked somewhere where I could get a hostel bed, as I wasn't in the mood for camping and, more importantly, somewhere I can actually reach via public transport since I've yet to get a car.

Settled on Glenmore, since I never got around to going there - headed out early on Saturday, arrived at Loch Morlich sometime after noon. Decided to go for a relaxed walk, see some sights, so I went for the walk up to Ryvoan Pass and next to An Lochan Uaine. After wondering if I'm on the right route (it does start with a quite unassuming road going behind the Reindeer Centre) the road became a trail (a very rocky one later on and I was glad I did it in this direction as I had the pleasure of going down and not up). Led to An Lochan Uaine which was lovely, as expected, though a bit crowded, so I stared at the ducks for a while and went on to the pass.

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ducks at An Lochan Uaine

I had no particular goal aside from walking a bit till I decide it's enough so I got a bit past the bothy, saw the incoming rain in the distance and decided that perhaps it's time to go back.

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View from aomewhere along Ryvoan Pass

The benefit of the slight rain was that on the way back there were far fewer people. And I had the whole evening for walking in the general vicinity of Loch Morlich and the singular pub that charges more for beer than Edinburgh (but I still got some, so I can't complain too much - in my defence it was raining, what else can you do) before it was time to wrap up and go to the hostel.

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Loch Morlich

Next day I woke up early, saw that actually there is no morning bus to Cairn Gorm parking lot because it's Sunday, so then had some time to have a morning coffee since it was either that or walking to the start along a road for a good 7km and that did not sound fun. Got to the base around 10ish and started going up.

Multiple forecasts said it was going to be a lovely day with no clouds at all till late afternoon. Of course it looked like this when I started walking up. I find it slightly hilarious because when I checked the weather staring at the cloud it was still saying cloudless skies - and if I remember right Cairn Gorm has an unmanned weather station at the top :D

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The "cloudless sky" as forecasted

Though it did clear by the time I got to the top so that's a win. By then it was 12. Now, the thing was, because of how buses and trains and their timings (for some reason each and every bus from Glemore arrives to Aviemore around 5-10 min after the train to Edinburgh departs) and the fact that it's Sunday I had a choice of either going down the nice route with northern corries and catching the last train sometime around 7pm, probably killing a few hours in Aviemore or go down the same route at a brisk pace to make it to a bus just before 2pm and on the earlier train before 4pm. I was hoping for an option mid-way but there were some rail issues with one route that had buses as a substitute.

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Well, I deeply dislike travelling on the last train after being stranded by one so brisk walk down it was. Still had an hour to kill in Aviemore but since I had coffee I had everything I needed.

The moral of the story - none, really, getting places via public transport is just like that, nothing to be done aside from accepting the non-standard schedule and chilling out for a while. A nice weekend trip considering my summer ended up being chaotic enough that I didn't really get to do much hiking.

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Easy start of the year

This post is not published on the Walkhighlands forum
Attachment(s) Fionas: Ben Cleuch
Donalds: Ben Cleuch
Date walked: 25/03/2023
Distance: 9.5km
Views: 7


Foggy Allermuir Hill

Attachment(s) Sub 2000s: Allermuir Hill
Date walked: 13/05/2021
Distance: 6km
Ascent: 385m
Views: 672

Malcadicta



Munros: 1
Corbetts: 1
Fionas: 2
Donalds: 1
Sub 2000: 3
Islands: 1



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Statistics

2023

Trips: 2
Distance: 26.5 km
Ascent: 750m
Munros: 1
Fionas: 1
Donalds: 1

2021

Trips: 1
Distance: 6 km
Ascent: 385m
Sub2000s: 1


Joined: May 12, 2021
Last visited: Mar 18, 2024
Total posts: 3 | Search posts