Overnight wild camping trip to The Stuic Buttress of Carn a'Choire Boidheach, and Lochnagar, leading my wife Marion. Had been planning this trip for some time, waiting for good weather. Had had several recce trips and aborted partial trips before, both in summer and winter, including February 2019 (turned back at base of buttress in deteriorating stormy conditions), February 2018 (starting from Callater Stables Bothy, snow conditions tired us out en route), and August 2015( ran out of motivation in dismal claggy conditions) so this was eagerly anticipated.
Left Edinburgh in lovely warm calm spring weather with a good forecast overnight, breeze to pick up on the 16th. Walked - in from the Invercauld Bridge car park at about 4pm, following the by now familiar path through the beautiful Ballochbuie forest with its remnant native pines, feeling hot with weight of our overnight packs. Leaving the path at a small cairn we'd noted on previous trips, we crossed the Feindallacher Burn and cut east across the moorland to reach the Allt Lochan nan Eun, which we followed upstream to Sandy Loch, setting up camp around 6pm. A very pleasant calm evening, although it soon cooled down very significantly, and with the tent at around 790m altitude we were glad we had brought our 4 season Rab down sleeping bags.
Set off for The Stuic around 8am on a beautiful sunny morning, with a cool easterly breeze, arrived at base of route 8.40am, topped out about 9.30. Mild scrambling, with a couple of steeper sections just above half-height, where I short-roped Marion using my 7mm confidence rope. We turned down the option of summiting Carn a'Choire Boidheach, having been there more than twice before, and followed the clear path which leads round the south of the corrie rim to Cac Carn Mor, and Cac Carn Beag, reached about 10.40. The descent direct to Sandy Loch took us on to some tricky convoluted boulderfield terrain, which we traversed carefully fearing a twisted ankle or worse, and arrived back at camp for lunch about 12 noon. Re-packed and descended to the car park, reached about 3pm.
Area :
Braemar to Montrose (Lochnagar)
Listed in the SMC Munros Guide as ‘The East Mounth: Glen Shee to Mount Keen’, this area includes all of the peaks to the south and east of the A93. Still part of the Cairngorms National Park, these mountains are home to the north facing crags on Lochnagar (1155m) and the most easterly Munro, Mount Keen (939m).
