It has been maybe 25 years since I last walked this route, the most famous pass from Deeside to Speyside, in this case from Braemar to Aviemore.
Fleur dropped me into Aberdeen and I took the bus to Braemar, weather looking a little variable. Had a great breakfast at The Bothy, easily the best breakfast in both Braemar and Ballater. Downside of the bus, however, is the walk to Linn of Dee. But, in shades of the PCT, a lovely bloke stopped and asked me if I needed a hitch!
The rest of the day was a walk in the drizzle to the Corrour Bothy. I had it all to myself so given the weather forecast decided to eschew my tent and settle in.
The next day was forecast to be pretty wet, but fortunately the rain blew through overnight and got a dry day, at least from the sky! The walk over the pass with all the Autumn colours is awesome but frequently difficult underfoot.
Passing over into Speyside the skies opened up with sun and enjoyed the walk through Rothiemurchus forest to Aviemore where Fleur was waiting in Costa with coffee and cake 😁
Well, finally managed to get out and camp again after over a year. Myself and Tony left in the Afternoon and set out from Linn of Dee (near Braemar) about 4pm. I was planning heading down Glen Lui but after about three miles we met some walkers at Derry Lodge and they recommended heading up Glen Derry and taking Ben Macdui (The UK’s second highest mountain) from there.
Lovely evening, the heather was in full flower so the ground was carpeted in purple.
Because Tony was coming along I had bought new gear. Firstly a Sierra Designs High Route trekking pole tent – I really like the design and it was a great price for what you get. It doesn’t work so well with Pacerpoles, so I’m getting a pair of Leki poles for this 😁.
Also was using a Gregory Optic pack, again got at a good price and actually a really good bit of kit, much underrated I think.
A new Pajak Radical 4z is as warm as my old Marmot bag but at 2/3s of the weight and much more packable. Pajak make the bags for Lightwave but at a better price.
And finally, my new Soto Windmaster was excellent and saves me quite a bit of weight on my MSR Windburner, though if the weather was predicted to be rough I would still take the latter.
Anyway, we camped up near the Hutchison Memorial Hut and enjoyed a decent sleep.
In the morning the weather was deteriorating but we decided to go up anyhow. Lovely views until we hit the clouds, but once we got to the plateau it was driving horizontal rain and little visibility, pretty nasty. Took the opportunity to shelter in the ruined hut up there and brew a coffee, before heading the 1/4 mile to the summit. Given the conditions we abandoned the plan to drop down into the Lairig Ghru and decided to retrace our steps to Glen Derry.
Navigation was a pain (and I certainly didn’t do as well as I should have on this point) so we had to follow a bearing over boulder fields to get back to the path, during which I slipped and gave myself a nasty bruise on the elbow. We however were followed by a herd of Stags in the mist which was unreal!
We got back down to the bothy rather wet (my goretex boots had given out entirely) so warmed up there before heading back to Linn of Dee. Of course the weather changed and we had beautiful sunshine by the time we got back.
Michael's Ramblings 