One More Bennachie Trig
Sub 2000s: Bennachie (Oxen Craig), Millstone Hill
Date walked: 03/02/2024
Time taken: 4.5 hours
Distance: 19.9km
Ascent: 818m
I hadn't been anywhere in 2024 so far, and was getting itchy feet. The forecast didn't look great, but this part of the country seemed to avoid the weather warnings for high winds - according to the website I looked at, at least. And since there were plenty of Subs I hadn't visited, I considered my options for a while before picking a rather popular duo: Oxen Craig and Millstone Hill. But rather than going for one of the northern car parks, which I felt would fill sooner, I opted to go for Donview, with a bit of an alternative route in mind.
The winds of the past few weeks also played a role in my hill choice, as I wanted to avoid walking through the woods for too long. After leaving the car park (which was still full, at least in terms of the normal places, but I managed to drive up onto a bit of grass and leave the car there), I immediately had to deal with 2 or 3 trees that had fallen across the path. But they'd be the only fallen trees I'd come across during the walk.
The summit of Millstone Hill was reached quickly, meeting quite a few people on the way. Just half an hour since the car park. But I still felt slow, and was struggling more than I would've liked throughout the ascent. No wonder; staying at home, indoors, doesn't do much to keep one in shape...
Coming down, and taking a rather sharp left turn, I reached the woods again, as well as a more complicated network of paths. But the signage was still excellent, so the next uphill part was fast approaching.
Just below the rocky summit, there was a junction of sorts, with a path leading uphill but the sign for the summit pointing left. I went left, and ended up tracing maybe half a circle around Mither Tap, clockwise, before finally making the final ascent. Perhaps I could've gone straight up then and taken the official path down - but only in better weather; up there, it was still quite windy. (To be fair, I'd searched for an Inverurie forecast; on Bennachie, the wind could've easily passed the warning threshold.)
Because of the wind, I quickly snapped a few pictures on the summit before crouching down behind one of the rocks and having a snack. When I looked up, ready to leave, the sight of a rather large dog standing right above me gave me a start.
Mither Tap seemed to be quite popular with dogs, either way. I can remember at least 4 that I came across just on the final bit where I retraced my steps. Further on, I took the path towards Craigshannoch: a great deal emptier than Mither Tap, when it came to both people and dogs. This whole bit - the heather, the wind, the cold, and the loneliness - made me feel strangely nostalgic for some reason, even though I'd never been to Bennachie before...
Looking down from Craigshannoch, the most direct path to Oxen Craig looked suspicious, like it could be boggy, so I turned left one junction earlier. I guess I would've been fine either way, but for 170 extra metres, no hard deliberation is required.
W of Oxen Craig, I had to cross a boulderfield reminiscent of Stob Ghabhar before picking up a path again. This path was worse than the previous ones, but still very much okay, so I made short work of the next stretch and found myself standing on Watch Craig, the next Top of Bennachie.
By this point, I was checking my position on a phone app to make sure I'd take the correct path on each junction. (Not the WH app; a different one.) And... compared to the OS Maps, considerably more paths were marked on the app. Including the one I found there, and also IRL, that took me to the summit of Hermit Seat. It's only now that I see this path is absent from the OS maps - which is why the route shown is only an approximation.
To reiterate; I was still checking my position on the phone app. The app showed a path reaching all the way to the 363 m top before descending. I turned left before the woods to reach the place where it was meant to branch off to the right - except once there, I could still only see the woods in front of me; no path. So I turned back and went for an alternative.
If I'd continued all the way down on this path, I would've been deposited on a minor road I could follow to the 'major' (still unnamed) road and back to Donview. But there was another option. I'd have plenty of road walking left anyway, I reasoned, so maybe 80% of the way down, I took a faint path cutting diagonally across the slope.
The path was just about clear enough to follow, cutting sometimes through heather, sometimes through gorse (the former was definitely preferable), and sometimes bracken, which posed no issue in February. But finding my way through some large and luscious gorse bushes, I was starting to regret turning away from the road. Possibly because I was starting to feel the exhaustion again.
All that remained was almost an hour of walking on the road. At 4.5 hours at reasonable pace, I couldn't have hoped for a much longer winter walk anyway. I just really need to do something about how misshapen I am.
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- Distance: 337.2 km
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- Ascent: 3016m
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- Distance: 154.2 km
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- Distance: 101.1 km
- Ascent: 5262m
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- Distance: 204 km
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