Scottish backpacking
The Scottish Backpacking meet saw five members (Andy Lewtas, Lewis Stonehouse, Andy Stratford, Lucie Williams, Gareth William) and one dog (Henry) assemble in Aviemore mid-morning on Friday 9th August. Poor weather put paid to any plans for mountain trad, it was too wet and windy even for roadside trad. Undeterred, Andy S had already set out for a solo hike up Ben Wyvis, a good effort in the strong wind that warmed him up nicely for the weekend ahead. In the evening, rucksacks were packed, weighed, repacked. After some hours the bags were packed to perfection. It was only at this stage that more than one member realised they needed to unpack their sleeping bag for the night at Karn House before re-packing first thing.
The forecast was for a blustery morning, winds easing through the day and evening. The morning wasn’t as windy as we expected, and full of optimism we drove up the ski road. Leaving one car at the Sugar Bowl car park, the first challenge of the day was persuading the parking machine to accept any coins. A few minutes later we’d driven up the hill and parked at the ski centre and were ready to set off, rucksacks on. Walking up Corrie Cas may not be pretty but it’s a fast way to gain height, and we were soon sheltering in the lee of the Ptarmigan Cafe. We layered up before following the line of cairns up to the summit of Cairngorm. A bit blowy, but not bad at all, and we had a view too. Continuing over the plateau we arrived some time later at Ben Macdui, winds relatively low and spirits remaining high.
The aim of the meet was to take in the five Cairngorm summits over 4000ft, and we’d already summited the first two. A secondary aim, if we were all feeling up to it, was to include two further munros of lesser stature. After a brief chat we all felt enthusiastic despite a heavy but short shower, and the wind even seemed to drop as we descended to the col beneath Carn a Mhaim. We started up the attractive ridge towards the summit, at which point the wind whipped up stronger than it had been all day. Lucie remembers being blown over, the frog-marched to take shelter behind some boulders. Another conference was held and we decided to give it one more go against the heavy wind. Determination paid off and before long we were on the summit, which oddly wasn’t windy at all.
Descending into the Lairig Ghru we had a great view of The Devil’s Point (another optional extra, not being a 4000ft peak) and were soon outside the Corrour Bothy. There was already a handful of tents up and a number of people in the bothy welcomed us inside and away from the midges, which came out in anger as soon as the gusts abated. Various parties arrived as the evening wore on, including a pair of young runners some way into a 60km challenge. They appeared very poorly prepared/equipped and had no food. The kind folks at the bothy shared what they could and the young runners left 20 minutes later. We never found out if they completed their challenge or not, but for us the only challenge was getting a good night’s sleep under canvas. The wind did drop overnight and the morning arrived calm, promising good weather for the day.
An early start brought us to the summit of The Devils Point by 8am in glorious bright morning light. It felt a bit of a walk around to Cairn Toul but the views were amazing and, still being early, it wasn’t so warm as to be uncomfortable. Sgor an Lochain Uaine isn’t much further, but by this point the midges were taking advantage of the calm day and were quite intense whenever we stopped. It’s a long way around the corries of Braeriach and we were all getting quite hot and thirsty by the time we reached the stream that feeds the Falls of Dee, where Henry had a swim and the rest of us quenched our thirsts are refilled our bottles. We’d managed all five of the Cairngorm 4000’s and taken in an extra two peaks (total 7 munros) but there was still a long walk out ahead of us.
Quite a few hips and knees were feeling sore by the time we’d walked along Braeriach’s long shoulder and descended back down to cross the Lairig Ghru, but in spite of this, everyone seemed to be having a good time. It felt a long way up to the Chalamain Gap but with some persistence we were all through the boulder field and all that remained were a few km of gentle walking on a good path.
Thank you very much to everyone who came along and put the effort in to not just the Cairngorm 4000’s but the extra summits of Carn a Mhaim and The Devils Point. Over the two days we walked 41km, made 3043m of ascent and were walking for a total of 15 hours 31 minutes. You can see a GPS track of our route:
- Day 1 www.gpsvisualizer.com/atlas/map?url=https%3A//www.williamsgarethrichard.com/ascents/71/71-a.gpx
- Day 2 www.gpsvisualizer.com/atlas/map?url=https%3A//www.williamsgarethrichard.com/ascents/71/71-b.gpx
Gareth Williams
