a trip to the cairngorms

I don’t know what it is, but these last few years as soon as I mentioned the thought of walking in the cairngorms, days or even weeks of fine to nice weather turn to hell on earth. Maybe it cause I’m getting old but the excitement of walking up into strong wind and driving rain just does’nt excite me as much as it used to, it did not seem to please the dog much either, so ended up cutting the walk short and spending the extra time in caledonian forest instead.

The cairngorn walk started from the bottom of tram station where we walked up a very nice pathed path to just below the cairn gorm summit from where I decided that a detour along the ridge above coire an sneachde was appropriate. Mosty this was after feeling the full force of the wind, but also the really well used path along the ridge was more visible through the cloud not forgetting the fact that I’ve walked it countless time before. Descended the ridge just before the fiacail buttress then made our way back to the car. Along the way we saw a few reindeer which the dog quite nicely took no interest in and another odd plant shown below which I still don’t know the name of, if any body knows I’d be interested in hearing. - just found it - bog asphodel.

Despite what I said about the weather eariler, I do prefer the cairngorms when the weather sets in, not only because it keeps people away but once on top the swirling of the clouds reveal some great scenes sometimes, not counting the fact that a cloudy day on ben macdui could also bring the big grey man - an illussion really but pretty scary the first time you see it or yourself.

Second mini walk was from the west end of loch morlich following a forestry track east in a circular route. There was some great views, especially on the higher track we used to return to the car and I’m sure the dog apprechiated the lack of wind and a flat surface to walk on. The woodland itself is typical of the woodland I walk around the moray area (the large exception being culbin) with the tree’s mainly towering over a field of heather and blaeberry shrubs - at this time of year the berrys are ripe and they make excellent jam but are just as good eaten raw striaght from the plant - saves carrying around a lunch box!

Over all it was a great day and even the climb up did not feel to bad, except for the wind, but if you’ve walked the cairngorms or any mountains - you kinda of get used to that.

paul

This entry was posted on 28/07/2009 at 09:37 pm and is filed under hikes. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response or trackback from your own site.

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