After the recent cold spell and reports of lots of snow in the Highlands, it was hard to resist a trip north of the boarder. So, with a mixture of excitement and boredom, I faced the seven and a half hour drive up to Aviemore yesterday. Thankfully, I was just in time to grab the last available bed in the Aviemore Bunkhouse, which provided an ideal base from which to launch today’s attack on the Cairngorms.
Starting from the lower car park of the Cairngorm ski area, I headed north-east to a saddle about 800m south of Stac na h-lolaire, where I caught up with two guys taking a break in the shelter from the wind at the top of the re-entrant. Having never dropped down into Strath Nethy before, I was keen to ask if they had any local knowledge about the river crossing we all knew wasn’t far away. They enthusiastically informed me that their map had a ford marked, but didn’t offer to show me this prized information and quite happily watched me take the lead into the valley – they must have been having a right laugh at my expense!
Fortunately, with everything being frozen, there wasn’t too much water in the river and it wasn’t hard to cross. However, the long slog up the north-west ridge of Bynack Beg was much more demanding, especially when the snow underfoot suddenly changed to ice before I’d got round to putting my crampons on. From there, it was a relatively short climb to the top of Bynack More which was made much harder by the strong southerly wind that picked up.
Bynack More was actually my target for the day, but I was now faced with two options. I could return on a similar route but this would make it quite a short day. Alternatively, I could attempt to take in the mighty summit of Cairn Gorm itself, which would mean significant loss of height before reascending even further and a race against time as the daylight failed. Not wanting to wimp out on my first day, I opted for the challenging option. As I left the top of Bynack More, I could only imagine the confused expressions on the faces of the two jokers I’d met earlier. As I looked back, their body language certainly seemed to be saying, “why’s he going that way?”
With the bit firmly between my teeth, I dropped down to ‘The Saddle’ pretty quickly as the cloud decided to surround me. My rapid progress was soon halted as I started the climb back up to the summit of Cairn Gorm. It seemed that my legs had had enough by this point and, at times, rests were only a few paces apart. A definite sign that I’m going to have to work on my ‘winter fitness’!
At the summit, I was welcomed by the site of a small ‘shovel up’ shelter. It may have only been big enough for one (or two very close friends!), but if offered a much appreciated break from the biting wind and an opportunity to have a hot drink from my flask without it being instantly turned into a Slush Puppy. However, time only allowed a short rest as daylight wouldn’t hang around much more than another hour.
The final descent went very smoothly. It was nice to have views down over Loch Morlich and Aviemore for a change, after being confronted with mountains and rocky crags all day. I couldn’t help having a quiet chuckle to myself when, as I arrived back at the car, the two jokers could be seen still picking their way across the hillside!
