A lovely spring morning for taking in my second Corbett, Mount Battock - this was my first hill walk of the year. Initially, my plan was to do Mount Battock via Clachnaben and return on the same route, but more on that later...

I set off walking just after 9am, leaving my car at the Glen Dye car park - it was only a half hour drive from home in Aberdeen. There were only another 2 cars there at that time in the morning, suggesting it would be a quiet walk with little company. After around 1km, Clachnaben becomes visible behind a forest:



The walk continues towards the forest and round the edge, before the path up the side of Clachnaben starts. The path was in good condition after the winter storms, despite a couple of trees to climb over! The tor of Clachnaben becomes evermore daunting on the approach:



Upon reaching the summit of Clachnaben at around the 4.8km mark, you can see the clear path to Mount Battock across the plateau and although the distance seemed a little daunting, continued my walk:



The good quality landrover (other 4x4's are available) track weaves across the plateau, slightly inclining/descending over the Hill of Edendocher, Sandy Hill, Hill of Badymicks. As Mount Battock came closer, I came to the conclusion that I would rather find an alternative route back as the plateau was in general, quite boring. I managed to get in touch with my brother and successfully talked him into picking me up in Glen Esk, before returning me to my car which was parked back in Glen Dye.

Some photos of the approach to Mount Battock:





And a look back towards Clachnaben:



I reached the summit of Mount Battock (around 12.7km) and the views across to Mount Keen and Lochnagar were vast, and there was a nice view down to Glen Esk too:





A quick bite to eat for lunch and I checked the map to determine my route down into Glen Esk. There was a clearly marked track from the summit which made the descent very easy.

A look back towards Mount Battock from where White Burn meets Black Burn at a Ford (with a bridge to cross thankfully!):



Much further down towards Glen Esk, there are series of burns adjoining one another but luckily there are well constructed crossings. I took a final photo of Mount Battock from Muir Cottage before it went out of sight:



As I was unsure how long it would take me to reach Glen Esk, I had agreed to meet my brother at Fernybank at 3:00pm, but I actually reached there just after 1:00pm. So instead of hanging around for two hours, I walked out of Glen Esk to meet him (I figured there was only one way in/out of the Glen, there was no way we could miss each other!). The distance to a feasible meeting point for a lift in future would be 20.5km, but I continued my walk of the glen to a total distance of 27.95km. Needless to say I was fairly chuffed when I saw my brother's car driving round the bend!