lairig ghru part 1


A plan to do the lairig ghru munros had been in the offing for years for me and Jim. Ever since we walked the route in 2010 we said we should go back and do it over the peaks instead of along the famous mountain pass. With some recent encouragement from another friend , Tommy S, we set this summer for the time to do it. With work and holiday commitments squeezing the timescale down , we were lucky with the weekend of great weather that we got when we chose to do it. with so much rain this summer it was astoundingly fortunate that we hit a sunshine kissed weekend to do it. We were joined by "young" Martyn and another friend, James, was good enough to drive us up to Braemar early on a saturday morning when he would rather be having a long lie before a day out with his kids, so really grateful to him for taking us up. We got to Linn o Dee car park around 9 am and got out of the car and started loading ourselves up with our packs and our SMIDGE ! The midges were out already ! A quick photo and we were off , they were that bad !


Trying to pack for a weekend walking in the gorms was proving quite difficult for me in the days leading up to the weekend. One rucksack too small another too big, so as usual , last minute run around the shops and i bought a new Osprey Talon 44 litre. It was too small. I ended up taking another small backpack and wore it on my chest for the first day.
Tommy two bags it was then !
In hindsight half of what i was carrying could have been left at home , but ....you have to be prepared !




At least when we were walking the midges didn`t bother us, but it was hard graft for most of us , except Jim, "I`m alright" he would say nonchalantly anytime anyone of us would complain about the weight of our packs, the heat, our feet, the chaffing... Loads of people passed us on bikes, and we would look at their packs and say, "They`re no staying in the bothy". The Corrour Bothy is where we were planning on staying for the night, although we did have one 2 man tent between us, just in case. We would then pass other walkers on route, check there packs and think, "they might be staying in the bothy, must keep ahead of them", there was no stopping for chit chat, there were spaces to be had away from the hell of the Cairngorm Midge in that hut.



We made good time to the base of Carn a`Mhaim and it was a relief to ditch the bags and make the fairly short walk up to the summit without them. although as we neared the top , the weather changed and it got a bit cold and breezy with a little rain as well. We has decent views though of the mountains we would climb the next day with only Braeriach covered in dark cloud that we hoped was moving north, away from us. A quick photae and a chat with some other walkers at the top and we were on our way back down again before the wind froze our sweaty bodies too much.



We got back to the bags, had a quick munch and I changed my top. It was Tommy two tops now..

Photo

We continued our way round toward the bothy and Marty motored ahead,wanting to be first there and check that there was room at the inn.

Indeed there was, only an Australian couple were staying there and we claimed our space for the night, more were to come...

It was only about 2 o`clock and so there was plenty of time to do The Devil`s Point as well before we settled in for the night. Martyn wasn`t so keen , having changed into fresh clothes but we convinced him otherwise and only Jim stayed to guard our beds.