Bike 11.3km + 250m, 33km + 1360m, bike 11.3km + 115m. 06.59 - 21.30.
Left Linn of Dee car park at 06.50 and headed out towards White Bridge and the Geldie Burn to GR966875 where I left the bike (08.20). Headed up a track onto Duke's Chair, and then on towards Aghaidh Gharbh before turning east and up to Carn Clioch-mhuilinn (09.45). A reasonable path took me most of the trig at Beinn Bhrotain (10.50). After a boulder field I picked up the path to the bealach and on to Monadh Mor (11.55). Here the nav got more interesting even on a clear day, working out which was the deleted top of Leth-chreag (12.35), which turned out to be quite prominent. After a lunch break, it was a question of contouring round to Tom Dubh (13.30) crossing streams via snow bridges and icy rocks. More contouring and crossing one stream on blocks of submerged ice brought me to another deleted top of Diollaid Coire Eindart (15.20). Despite there being a track towards Mullach Clach a Bhlair (16.00), this proved to be more treacherous than the snow covered terrain. Finally starting downhill to Druim nam Bo (16.20) yet another deleted top. From there it was crossing the pathless terrain to join the Glen Feshie track at GR895891 (17.40). Night quickly descended, a change of head-torch batteries, a cursing of argocats chewing the track into a morass, brought me thankfully back to the bike (20.10). An eventless cycle brought me tired and happy back to my van (21.30). Once I'd driven nearly to Braemar to phone home I didn't bother with food but climbed into my sleeping bag!
This was a long day tidying up odd summits. Was it a quality mountain day? Lots of old slab that often didn't bear ones weight added to the challenge, crossing the streams was possibly the biggest challenge, as for the nav, it is a big plateau deeply incised by water courses, where any mistakes on such a long day would have serious implications. So yes.
I had considered splitting it into two days, one from Glen Dee, the other from Glen Feshie. Another alternative was to carry on to the bothy in Glen Feshie and split the day that way. Instead I went to the 'lazy mans load' and did it in one day!
Area :
The Cairngorms
The Cairngorms are ‘a little piece of the arctic in Scotland’ according to the SMC Munros Guide and the area contains many of the tallest peaks in the East Highlands. Ben Macdui (1309m), Cairn Gorm (1244m) and Braeriach (1296) are probably three of the better known and the whole area is full of steep corries and high plateaux. Access to the mountains is typically from Aviemore or Braemar.
